The Distance Between
A Memoir
by Timothy J. Hillegonds
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Oct 01 2019 | Archive Date Oct 31 2019
Talking about this book? Use #TheDistanceBetween #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
At eighteen years old, with no high school diploma, a growing rap sheet, and a failed relationship with his estranged father, Timothy J. Hillegonds took a one-way flight from Chicago to Colorado in hopes of leaving his mounting rage and frustration behind. His plan was simple: snowboard, hang out, live an uncomplicated life.
The Distance Between chronicles how Hillegonds’s plan went awry after he immediately jumped head first into a turbulent relationship with April, a Denny’s coworker and single mother. At once passionate and volatile, their relationship was fueled by vodka, crystal methamphetamine, and poverty—and it sometimes became violent. Mere months after moving to the mountains, when the stakes felt like they couldn’t be higher, Hillegonds learned April was pregnant with his child.
More than just a harrowing story of addiction and abuse or a simple mea culpa, The Distance Between is a finely wrought exploration of, and reckoning with, absent fathers, fatherhood, violence, adolescent rage, white male privilege, and Hillegonds’s own toxic masculinity. With nuance and urgency, The Distance Between takes readers through the grit of life on the margins while grappling with the problematic nature of one man’s existence.
Advance Praise
“What a gorgeous book. Hillegonds’s candor and insight are a marvel, his storytelling gripping, harrowing, and beautiful.”—Michele Morano, author of Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain
“With earnest, unflinching prose and piercing detail, Hillegonds chronicles a turbulent past defined by a toxic mixture of rage, recklessness, and addiction. His willingness to peel back the layers of vulnerability and shame to reveal the man he once was is a stirring testament to the man he is now.”—Melanie Brooks, author of Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma
“The Distance Between is a bracingly honest account of a boy’s search for manhood through the wilds of addiction, violence, and early fatherhood. This story gutted me. Hillegonds’s debut announces that he’s a writer to watch.”—Hope Edelman, author of Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781496216687 |
| PRICE | $19.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 280 |
Featured Reviews
Abby S, Reviewer
An honest open raw look at the authors road to adulthood a young man full of rage a young man who becomes addicted and early fatherhood a very well written compelling read,#netgalley #u.of Nebraskapress.
Eloise B, Reviewer
This read is a brilliant memoir, focusing on the turbulent life of a young man as is plans of a new life get quickly derailed.
It focuses on love, relationships, abuse, drugs and poverty in a very moving and captivating writing style. I am not usually a fan of memoirs but this drew me in from page one.
Readers who liked this book also liked:
