The Distance

This comprehensive two book set vividly captures the complex story of a one country's involvement in the Second World War. Although focused on events in Hungary during much of the book, it is an international story with international implications. The characters are a mix of real life historical figures such as Raoul Wallenberg, Adolf Eichman, General Heinz Guderian, Regent Miklos Horthy, and others, who intermingle with the fictional characters to propel the complex story of one country and its people so tragically caught in the middle. The Distance takes the reader on an incredible journey through the pivotal years of 1941-1945. While most accounts of these years focus on either the miltary, political, or on the Holocaust, the story Garrison painstakingly pieces together links these very interwoven events as they impacted one another with such catastrophic effect. Not unlike the epic struggle of Ulyysses, the Hungarians find themselves caught in a giganic struggle that was not necessarily their own making, but one that they must confront and somehow endure.