How Much of These Hills Is Gold
C Pam Zhang
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020. In the American West, during the Gold Rush, Lucy and Sam leave town with a gun in their hands and the body of their father on their backs. The siblings seek out a new way to live, but will their secrets bring them together or break them apart?
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020
A Barack Obama Book of the Year
‘Pure gold‘ (Emma Donoghue)
‘A daring and haunting epic’ (Sunday Times)
‘Reminiscent of both Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison’ (Irish Times)
Ba dies in the night; Ma is already gone. Lucy and Sam, twelve and eleven, are suddenly alone and on the run. With their father’s body on their backs, they roam an unforgiving American West dotted with giant buffalo bones and tiger paw prints, searching for a place to give him a proper burial.
Forever changed, Lucy and Sam must now forge their own paths in the twilight of the Gold Rush. Sam wants to live in their father’s violent shadow, while Lucy seeks a different way. Denied and menaced at every turn, they encounter a sinister fur trapper, a brothel owner, a wealthy girl who offers conditional comfort . . . but amid these new gods of greed, wealth and opportunism, can the siblings stay true to who they are? Will their shared family history – and the secrets behind it – bring them together or break them apart?
