"It was dead quiet in his mind. He rarely thought of anything that was not at hand. Years vanished under a weightless present. Through countless frosts and thaws, he walked in circles wider than nations. And then he stopped."

Diaz has evoked a Western fable ridiculously tangible, begrimed, and painful. Håkan, our haunted Swedish pilgrim, half-exists as a lost boy desperately seeking purpose and experience. The other half gets torn, chapped, and eroded into a beastly Paul Bunyan analogue. Here's a new American who unknowingly had the audacity to walk East – against the current of the American Gold Rush (and who couldn't, wouldn't speak for himself).

The unforgiving American West as an extension of our growing, decaying, breathing body. A disjointed, backtracking Odyssey that's confounding in its structure but just so assured, well-researched, and memorable in its individual moments. The writing is beautiful and, I think, successfully conveys how time and isolation can truly drive you mad. How old are we? The earth will swallow us. It's almost comforting. (Chapter 20 deserves an award on its own)