C Pam Zhang

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.

A Novel

How Much of These Hills Is Gold

Abigail F

it took me two attempts to get into How Much of These Hills is Gold, and dare i say that was one attempt too many lol. i committed myself to the prose, at first, waiting for it to take me over and immerse me in this world of western hills and valleys. and at times, in the beginning, it did! and zhang’s words were hauntingly beautiful, and i was lost in lucy and sam’s world. 

however once we got to ba’s section, the third section… i was over it. even before, i had found myself getting bored halfway through paragraphs, my eyes jumping to the next page to see when the action might be, but i found lucy and sam’s relationship to be riveting. for me, it was probably the best part of the book. i was so interested in their differences, sam’s courage and trans-ness and lucy’s silence and girlhood. like i identify with both of these narratives, i was so excited to see the different complexities of their relationship!

only to be met with… nothing. like i thought zhang’s depiction of the fetishization that they experienced was adequate, and their description of lucy’s struggle with beauty was.. okay? although i thought that both didn’t go far enough. but how are you not going to talk about how abusive ba was towards lucy? and how that was probably the reason why she thought it would be okay to give her body for sam’s?and how sam still idolized ba? 

or how are you going to depict charles’ pursuit of lucy, but not how her beauty changed how she perceived the world and how the world perceived her entirely? or how that changed after her nose broke again? (also… dont even get me started on that lmao. as an ugly kid, i would have dreamed for someone to break my nose if it would make me beautiful. take-away: that doesn’t happen!)

all in all, i think that this book is good! it’s just like… first or second draft good lmao. it’s not even necessarily that i hate the prose but more-so that i wish zhang did more with it, that it could have prompted us to reflect on the characters and their actions or revealed something more than just the filler it felt like it was. i would say that their chinese heritage was one of the strongest parts of the book, although more in the way it affected them as characters than the actual role china/the ship had in the book. basically, if the plot intrigues you and you find the prose bearable, i would say read on! just be prepared to skim lmao. you won’t really miss anything

madison w

it took me two attempts to get into How Much of These Hills is Gold, and dare i say that was one attempt too many lol. i committed myself to the prose, at first, waiting for it to take me over and immerse me in this world of western hills and valleys. and at times, in the beginning, it did! and zhang’s words were hauntingly beautiful, and i was lost in lucy and sam’s world. 

however once we got to ba’s section, the third section… i was over it. even before, i had found myself getting bored halfway through paragraphs, my eyes jumping to the next page to see when the action might be, but i found lucy and sam’s relationship to be riveting. for me, it was probably the best part of the book. i was so interested in their differences, sam’s courage and trans-ness and lucy’s silence and girlhood. like i identify with both of these narratives, i was so excited to see the different complexities of their relationship!

only to be met with… nothing. like i thought zhang’s depiction of the fetishization that they experienced was adequate, and their description of lucy’s struggle with beauty was.. okay? although i thought that both didn’t go far enough. but how are you not going to talk about how abusive ba was towards lucy? and how that was probably the reason why she thought it would be okay to give her body for sam’s?and how sam still idolized ba? 

or how are you going to depict charles’ pursuit of lucy, but not how her beauty changed how she perceived the world and how the world perceived her entirely? or how that changed after her nose broke again? (also… dont even get me started on that lmao. as an ugly kid, i would have dreamed for someone to break my nose if it would make me beautiful. take-away: that doesn’t happen!)

all in all, i think that this book is good! it’s just like… first or second draft good lmao. it’s not even necessarily that i hate the prose but more-so that i wish zhang did more with it, that it could have prompted us to reflect on the characters and their actions or revealed something more than just the filler it felt like it was. i would say that their chinese heritage was one of the strongest parts of the book, although more in the way it affected them as characters than the actual role china/the ship had in the book. basically, if the plot intrigues you and you find the prose bearable, i would say read on! just be prepared to skim lmao. you won’t really miss anything

Brian

C. Pam Zhang

Set during the Gold Rush, in a re-imagined American West, Lucy and Sam, twelve and eleven, are newly orphaned siblings. With their father's body on their backs, they roam an unforgiving landscape dotted with buffalo bones and tiger paw prints, searching for a place to give him a proper burial. The siblings must battle with their own memories, the illusion of the American Dream and each other. HOW MUCH OF THESE HILLS IS GOLD is an epic debut novel about family and the search for both a home and a fortune.

Lamia Hajani

I found myself getting lost here and there. Huge chunks of time are glossed over. Interesting story but not gripping.

One of the best books I’ve read to date. Zhang meticulously crafts a voracious, tangible story that you could place 200 years in the past or future, never truly answering when or where the novel takes place. And yet, we recognize so many motifs from life today - racial stereotypes, yearning, the struggle of being an immigrant, exclusion, family dynamics, grief. Zhang slowly unfurls a world full of bloodshed, fear and greed in a setting so well-described, I see it even now. Piece by piece we watch the novel link up and our understanding of the plot comes into view, though never linear and never certain.

However, as is reasonable in a debut novel, Zhang fumbles a bit with the plot line and errs on the flowery side in prose (though I love that style) leaving the reader to reread passages repeatedly and question what and where exactly things are going on. All is forgiven in this gripping novel that I recommend to everyone I meet.

Nina

One of the best books I’ve read to date. Zhang meticulously crafts a voracious, tangible story that you could place 200 years in the past or future, never truly answering when or where the novel takes place. And yet, we recognize so many motifs from life today - racial stereotypes, yearning, the struggle of being an immigrant, exclusion, family dynamics, grief. Zhang slowly unfurls a world full of bloodshed, fear and greed in a setting so well-described, I see it even now. Piece by piece we watch the novel link up and our understanding of the plot comes into view, though never linear and never certain.

However, as is reasonable in a debut novel, Zhang fumbles a bit with the plot line and errs on the flowery side in prose (though I love that style) leaving the reader to reread passages repeatedly and question what and where exactly things are going on. All is forgiven in this gripping novel that I recommend to everyone I meet.

Ryan LaFerney

C Pam Zhang's debut novel, How Much of These Hills is Gold, is a beautiful, roaming, aching novel about the promise of the American dream and what it means to find a home. 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. 

These siblings, Lucy and Sam, 12 and 11, children of Chinese laborers, take their father's body on a journey through the California hills in the middle of the Gold Rush. The quest for burial, the family strife, the smell of death, the hot sun, the dust, the storms, all recall Faulkner. Ba (Mandarin for "dad") haunts the narrative as Addie Bundren did, first as voice and then ultimately as a corpse, awful, unwieldy, and decomposing.

“How Much of These Hills Is Gold” is an aching book, full of myths of Zhang’s making (including tigers that roam the Western hills) as well as joys, as well as sorrows. It’s violent and surprising and musical. It's a book that doesn't provide easy answers. And it's one that quietly confrontational. Zhang wants you to remember the forgotten Chinese laborers, the very laborers who helped build the transcontinental railroad. More importantly, Zhang wants you to realize that they belong to this land too, even if they quite don't feel that way and even if their own individual ideas of what constitutes a home, a body, etc. may differ.

Zhang characters are flawed. Ba, is one mean-spirited but well meaning individual. And Lucy, tragically in the end, might be looking for a home in all the wrong places. Zhang does interesting things with genre too - subverting the Western to talk about race, gender, sexual identity, poverty and pubescence. 

Alongside Sam and Lucy’s family story are the stories of the genocide and persecution of Native Americans, the colonization of the west and the compulsive exploitation of the land by desperate settlers and greedy opportunists. This is not your American history course from high school. This is poetic truth.

How Much of These Hills is Gold, is a beautiful and daring debut novel from a promising novelist. The novel doesn't necessarily have a neat ending. It's up to you to decide if Lucy and Sam ever truly find a home to call their own.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE 2020 CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE A NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION 5 UNDER 35 HONOREE NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Belongs on a shelf all of its own." --NPR "Outstanding." --The Washington Post "Revolutionary . . . A visionary addition to American literature." --Star Tribune 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 reimagined 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.

taryn a.

4.5 stars. potentially the most vivid thing i've read this year. devoured whole.

found it kind of difficult to get into a first but due to my stubbornness not to DNF a book, carried on & glad that i did. informative about racism, gender, trauma & family and was a side of westerns that is often not told.

The beginning was as slow and tedious to get through as the journey the main characters take, but with each part more information and depth is added. By the end I really enjoyed the book, even with the sad, but still realistic ending.

I think this would be a good book to read in class, so i recommend 👍

The beginning was as slow and tedious to get through as the journey the main characters take, but with each part more information and depth is added. By the end I really enjoyed the book, even with the sad, but still realistic ending.

I think this would be a good book to read in class, so i recommend 👍

jiaqi kang

Celeste Sunderland Gottfried

I loved how I was immediately transported to the deserts of Northern California with this book. I also loved becoming better acquainted with the history and context of early Chinese immigration to the area.

In the end, I liked it. Something about the beginning half of the novel just did not click with me. The way Zhang chose the more poetic style and made it feel like an unending tragedy really took me out of feeling any emotion for any characters. I realize it is historical fiction and that these things likely did or certainly could have occurred in degrees. I just think that Zhang feeling the need to include a bullet-pointed list of the tragedies that struck the family in the small amount of time kind of sums up just how many bad things were made to happen for dramatic effect.

But once the style changes, especially a kind of letter style chapter from Ba and then the more adult protagonists living their lives, I think it got a lot better. At least for me, the characters became more alive and got their own personalities. 

It's definitely worth a read if you like westerns and want something that isn't just a bunch of white men running around like cowboys. I'm curious to see what Zhang writes next, as their style may have evolved.

Pam Sartain

How much of these hills is gold is a novel set in the wild west of America, during the gold rush.  It looks at Chinese immigrants, who you'll probably have seen in films set during these times, building rail roads.

We follow two siblings, who are trying to survive in this harsh world, and flash back to their earlier childhoods, and their parents.

This isn't a light read, but was a very interesting look at a time that has been so documented from the white cowboys point of view.

I enjoyed this book.  It's a overwhelming experience of a different time and place, but one that is well written, and takes out to the wild landscapes described.  It's a tale of siblings, their love, their rivalry, and their commitment to family, all set within a world that we've seen often in films and books.  It gives a lot of insights and gives a glimpse of what life was like.

 How Much of These Hills is Gold  was published on 9th April 2020,  and is available to buy on  Amazon   and on   Waterstones .  The Waterstones link takes you to a signed edition!  I've found a  link  to where you can search for local bookshops, including independent!

If you're interested in historical books from a different perspective, then I think you'd enjoy  The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins. 

I was given this book for free in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to  Little, Brown Book Group and Virago  (the publishers) for this book.

Check out my  GoodReads profile  for more reviews.

Nadia Meera

“Because though these dry yellow hills yielded nothing but pain and sweat and misplaced hope—she knows them. A part of her is buried in them, a part of her lost in them, a part of her found and born in them—so many parts belong to this land. An ache in her chest like the tug of a dowsing rod. Across the ocean the people will look like them, but they won’t know the shapes of these hills, or the soughing of grass, or the taste of muddy water—all these things that shape Lucy within as her eyes and nose shape her without.”

Deborah Kerr

PROS:
1. The story itself--the plot and especially the characters--was great. Fascinating and fresh
2. The length of the book--though the pacing can be stagnant at times, because this book isn't particularly long, getting through it wasn't a slog.
3. The author's writing style shows a great deal of promise for some seriously beautiful writing in the future.
4. I really enjoyed reading a book from a time period and perspective I know nothing about.

CONS:
1. The pacing was... questionable. There are sections that feel like they could've been left out and others that could've used some breathing space. 
2. The author's lyrical writing was beautiful at times, but ham-fisted in others. The over-use of metaphor made it difficult to care about the beauty of the words when every other sentence contained something of that nature.

Christian Beck

Couldn’t finish this. The concept and perspective were so promising but the writing style was just too difficult for me to get into. What she takes on with this book is audacious and–clearly based on other reviews–it’s a roaring success. But for me, it wasn’t a pleasant read.

Francine Corry

Andréa Mellalieu

Joyce

Tina Pfützenreuter

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2021 A BARACK OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 'The boldest debut of the year . . . It is refreshing to discover a new author of such grand scale, singular focus and blistering vision' Observer 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. 'The 19th-century American West is the setting for C Pam Zhang's impressive debut. Rickety wagons, gambling dens, dusty towns and dodgy outlaws stalk its pages . . . How Much of These Hills is Gold breaks the mould [as a] revisionist immigrant fable of the making of the West . . . a daring and haunting epic' Sunday Times 'A truly gifted writer' Sebastian Barry, two-time Costa Book of the Year winner 'Pure gold' Emma Donoghue, Booker-shortlisted author of Room 'Dazzling' Daisy Johnson, Booker-shortlisted author of Everything Under A GWYNETH PALTROW BOOK CLUB PICK

How Much of These Hills Is Gold A Novel

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