How Much of These Hills is Gold
‘A tale of two sisters during the gold rush … beautifully written’ The i, Best Books of the Year
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- € 5,49
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- € 5,49
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LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2020
A BARACK OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020
America. In the twilight of the Gold Rush, two siblings cross a landscape with a gun in their hands and the body of their father on their backs . . .
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 landscape dotted with giant buffalo bones and tiger paw prints, searching for a place to give him a proper burial.
How Much of These Hills is Gold is a sweeping adventure tale, an unforgettable sibling story and a remarkable novel about a family bound and divided by its memories.
'A daring and haunting epic' SUNDAY TIMES
'A unique reimagining of the American West adventure' THE TIMES
'A fierce, feminist Western' DAILY MAIL
'Remarkable' HARPER'S BAZAAR
'Reminiscent of both Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison' IRISH TIMES
'C Pam Zhang's arresting, beautiful first novel is filled with myths of her own making as well as sorrows and joys' NEW YORK TIMES
A GWYNETH PALTROW BOOK CLUB PICK
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Zhang's extraordinary debut, a beautifully rendered family saga, centers on a pair of siblings, Lucy, 12, and Sam, 11, who are left orphaned in the wake of the American gold rush. When their father a former prospector and coal miner whom they call Ba dies after a short, hard life of toil and drink, Lucy and Sam want to bury him properly, according to Chinese burial traditions. This means two silver dollars to cover his eyes, but it's two silver dollars the two don't have. Clever Lucy attempts to appeal to the townspeople's sympathy, but it's hotheaded Sam, armed with their father's pistol, who understands that it takes force to make things happen. With their father's decomposing body, the pistol, and a stolen horse, Lucy and Sam disappear into the hills. As they search for a burial site and look forward to a future for themselves, Lucy and Sam reckon with how gold, ambition, and desire shaped the lives of both their Ba and their beautiful, beloved, and long-departed Ma, whose womanhood never dampened her hunger and ambition, and how that greed has been passed down to them. Gorgeously written and fearlessly imagined, Zhang's awe-inspiring novel introduces two indelible characters whose odyssey is as good as the gold they seek.
