In the Distance / Trust

de Hernan Diaz

***In the Distance*** A young Swedish immigrant finds himself penniless and alone in California. The boy travels East in search of his brother, from whom he was separated in the crowds and chaos during their journey across the sea. Moving on foot against the great current of emigrants pushing West, he is driven back again and again, meeting naturalists, criminals, religious fanatics, swindlers, Indians, and lawmen—and his exploits turn him into a legend. ***Trust*** Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly boundless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of *Bonds*, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.