How Much of These Hills Is Gold
Author: C Pam Zhang
Publisher: Riverhead
View on Goodreads
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Note: Trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
An electric debut novel set against the twilight of the American gold rush, two siblings are on the run in an unforgiving landscape — trying not just to survive but to find a home.
Ba dies in the night; Ma is already gone. Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future.
Both epic and intimate, blending Chinese symbolism and re-imagined history with fiercely original language and storytelling, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is a haunting adventure story, an unforgettable sibling story, and the announcement of a stunning new voice in literature. On a broad level, it explores race in an expanding country and the question of where immigrants are allowed to belong. But page by page, it's about the memories that bind and divide families, and the yearning for home.
TL;DR Review
How Much of These Hills Is Gold is a beautiful literary story about two Chinese-American siblings surviving on their own near the end of the gold rush. Like everyone else, I loved it.
For you if: You like to read books that encourage you to linger over every word.
Full Review
I’m not sure I have much to say about How Much of These Hills Is Gold that hasn’t already been said by readers and literary critics alike. But allow me to add my voice to the throng: This book is phenomenal.
It’s about two young Chinese-American siblings, Lucy and Sam, living out west at the end of the gold rush. At the beginning of the novel, their father has just died, and they’re forced to flee their home. They bring his body along and search for a place to bury him. The second part of the novel goes back in time, showing us the events leading up to the loss of their mother. The third part (my personal favorite) is narrated by the girls’ father and addressed to Lucy as his spirit tells the story of how he met their mother. And the last part takes place five years after the girls buried their father.
The book’s jacket description says, “On a broad level, it explores race in an expanding country and the question of where immigrants are allowed to belong. But page by page, it's about the memories that bind and divide families, and the yearning for home.” I couldn’t have said this better myself.
C Pam Zhang is a language artist. Her writing is bold and sweeping and lyrical and takes no prisoners. She has such trust in her readers; she knows that you’re smart and you can handle it, and that you’ll either keep up or catch up in short order.
I also have a deep admiration for the care with which she treated Sam’s character, the pages and pages at the beginning where Sam’s gender was ambiguous, the love that is evident from Sam’s loved ones and even Zhang herself.
This book is quiet, declarative, magical, emotional. Read it.
Trigger Warnings
Death of a parent
Racism, xenophobia
Pregnancy, stillbirth
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