In the Distance With You

by Carla Guelfenbein Narrated by Nicol Zanzarella, Robert Fass

Overview

This Chilean literary thriller tells the story of three lives intertwined with that of an enigmatic author, whose character is inspired by the groundbreaking Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector.



Vera Sigall, now eighty years old, has lived a mysterious, ascetic life far from the limelight of literary circles. This powerful character has a profound effect on those around her-Daniel, an architect and her neighbor and friend, unhappy in his marriage and career; Emilia, a Franco-Chilean student who travels to Santiago to write a thesis on the elusive Vera; and Horacio, an acclaimed poet with whom Vera had a tumultuous, passionate affair in her youth.



As Daniel, Emilia, and Horacio tell their stories, they reconstruct Vera's past, and search for their own identities. Spanning from modern-day Chile to the 1950s, 60s, and through the years of the Pinochet dictatorship, In the Distance With You reveals successive mysteries and discoveries like a set of Russian nesting dolls.

Editorial Reviews

AUGUST 2018 - AudioFile

This quiet, character-driven novel, set in Chile, features four principal characters, but only three have a voice. After suffering a fall, 80-year-old Vera, a famous, reclusive author, is in a coma, unable to communicate. Narrator Nicol Zanzarella performs the chapters told from the perspective of Emilia, a Franco-Chilean graduate student who’s researching Vera’s life. Robert Fass narrates the sections recounted by Vera’s friend and neighbor, Daniel, a struggling architect, and by Horacio, an internationally known poet and ex-lover of Vera’s. As the three await Vera’s fate, they contemplate the past and reassess the future. Zanzarella’s and Fass’s performances complement each other in pacing, pronunciations, and mood, smoothing the transitions between viewpoints and enhancing the dreamlike atmosphere of this story about relationships, talent, and finding one’s path. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

From the Publisher

A Library Journal Best Book of the Year  

“A stunningly constructed narrative…As absorbing as any mystery.” —Library Journal, Best Books of the Year

“A marvelous, multi-faceted feat of storytelling.” —BBC Culture
 
“This luminous and eloquent novel will appeal in particular to readers with an interest in Latin American literature.” —Booklist (starred review)
 
“[A] moving page-turner. Suspense, emotions, and magic course throughout this beautifully narrated book. Highly recommended for fans of Latin American literature and general literary mysteries.” —Library Journal (starred review)
 
“[This mystery] will leave you puzzling over questions, both specific to the book and more relevant to life in general, as you try and figure out not just who Sigall is, but who you are, who anyone is.” —Nylon, 46 Great Books to Read This Summer
 
“Fans of literary fiction will enjoy this atmospheric Chilean mystery.” —BookRiot
 
“There’s something about a good literary mystery that can satisfy a reader on multiple levels…compelling…the real power here comes from the overlapping plotlines, which venture into some unexpected places.” —Words Without Borders
 
“Mystery and obsession combine to make Chilean author Carla Guelfenbein’s novel…an atmospheric page-turner.” —Jewish Week
 
“Guelfenbein’s elegantly structured, psychologically astute novel moves with the urgency of a detective novel, but its real mysteries turn on questions of authorship, reading, interpretation, and the strange power of fiction to enter the speechless realm of human erotic desire.” —Siri Hustvedt, author of The Blazing World
 
“The subject of this profound and intricate novel is the irreducible mystery at the core of every person, the buried lines of history and desire that render us inscrutable even to ourselves. Carla Guelfenbein is an important and powerful writer, and this translation is a gift to English-language readers.” —Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You
 
“Three figures gather around the comatose body of a legendary Latin American writer, trying—in different ways and before it’s too late—to unveil the dying woman’s secrets. With In the Distance with You, Carla Guelfenbein has created a truly thrilling book about books, a novel about the spell great writers cast on either side of the grave.” —Benjamin Moser, author of Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector

Library Journal - Audio

11/01/2018
Part historical fiction, part thriller, Guelfenbein's (The Rest Is Silence) latest is told from alternating points of view. There's Emilia, a Frenchwoman suffering from an illness that forces her to live her life in unique isolation, who comes to Chile to research reclusive author Vera Segall; Daniel, an architect, aspiring chef, and Vera's neighbor; and Horacio, a fellow writer with hidden ties to Vera's past and her work. These three characters circle Vera's life and death from the 1950s to the story's present, entering and leaving one another's orbits in surprising fashion and struggling to attribute meaning to their own existences with and without her. It is a story of moving forward, of the ties that bring people together and tear them apart, and the unexpected consequences of secrets, deception, and exile. VERDICT Though some listeners might wish longer periods of time were spent with each character or that the author had incorporated more of the Chilean landscape and history into her narrative, literary fiction fans will find this a satisfying mystery and meditation on breaking free of the past in order to embrace the future. ["Suspense, emotions, and magic course through this beautifully narrated book. Highly recommended for fans of Latin American literature and general literary mysteries": LJ 4/1/18 starred review of the Other hc.]—Samantha Facciolo, New York

AUGUST 2018 - AudioFile

This quiet, character-driven novel, set in Chile, features four principal characters, but only three have a voice. After suffering a fall, 80-year-old Vera, a famous, reclusive author, is in a coma, unable to communicate. Narrator Nicol Zanzarella performs the chapters told from the perspective of Emilia, a Franco-Chilean graduate student who’s researching Vera’s life. Robert Fass narrates the sections recounted by Vera’s friend and neighbor, Daniel, a struggling architect, and by Horacio, an internationally known poet and ex-lover of Vera’s. As the three await Vera’s fate, they contemplate the past and reassess the future. Zanzarella’s and Fass’s performances complement each other in pacing, pronunciations, and mood, smoothing the transitions between viewpoints and enhancing the dreamlike atmosphere of this story about relationships, talent, and finding one’s path. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170127887
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	06/05/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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