The Distance Home

Saunders's bleak story begins after World War II on the isolated South Dakota plains, where childhood friends Eve and Al begin married life in a basement apartment in his parents' house. Al joins his father in the cattle brokerage business. His extensive travels mean that Eve alone must create a life for children Leon, René, and Jayne. She sends clumsy Leon to tap dance, then ballet lessons, joined by René. Al is enraged over their son taking ballet; he also ignores Leon's baseball accomplishments, driving his son into embarrassing stuttering and self-destructive behavior until he leaves home after failing high school. Meanwhile, René refuses to be pulled down by small-town conformity, eventually finding artistic success in New York. Disconnected from her origins as the family disintegrates, she finally prays that angels will "carry each of them…to wherever it was they all needed to go."