How Much of These Hills Is Gold: A Novel

thenextgoodbook.com
How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang
272 pages

What’s it about?
Lucy, twelve, and her androgynous sister Sam, eleven, wake to find their father has died in the night and left them orphans. Sam insists that Ba have a "proper burial" like Ma showed them. For this they need two coins for Ba's eyes- and the right spot. Procuring two coins is not easy and they soon find themselves on the run. Throwing their father's body on the back of a horse they get out of town as fast as they can. The unforgiving landscape of the American West is the backdrop to this story.

What did it make me think about?
Looking through Lucy's eyes we see a different American West than we usually read about. An American West that is both beautiful, and harsh. Westerners that rob the land, and love the land. White westerners that are assured of taking what they want, and those of Chinese descent or Native American descent that have no recourse. What an interesting and illuminating perspective Ms. Zhang shares with us.

Should I read it?
A. Pam Zhang writes so beautifully. "They've nearly reached the foot of the mountains, one week later, when the rib in the sky thickens. Wolf moon, rarest kind. Bright enough that after sunset and seat rise comes moonrise. Silver pries their eyes awake. The blades of grass, the bristles of Nellie's mane, the creases of their clothes- illuminated." I often found myself re-reading paragraphs so as not to miss anything. The first 20 pages or so were a little slow but the story picks up. Lucy and Sam were memorable characters and I loved the way Ms. Zhang shed light on Ba's story, Very lyrical and inventive writing. I would recommend this one to anyone who enjoys a more literary book.

Quote-
"What could almost make a girl laugh is how Ba came to these hills to be a protector. Like thousands of others he thought the yellow grass of this land, its coin-bright gleam in the sun, promised even brighter rewards. But none of those who came to dig the West reckoned on the land's parched thirst, on how it drank their sweat and strength. None of them reckoned on the stinginess. Most came too late. The riches had been dug up, dried out. The streams bore no gold. The soil bore no crops. Instead they found a far duller prize locked within the hills: coal."

If you liked this try-
Driftless by David Rhodes​
​The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
News of the World by Paulette Jiles

The premise of two orphaned Chinese American children during the Gold Rush era is very compelling. There aren't many stories written from the perspective of Asian Americans who helped built the American railroads and further popularized the gold rush hype. Lucy and Sam's journey to give their dad's corpse a proper burial across the western landscape is ambitious and admirable. However, the writing really took me on a loop to understand a lot of their intentions against their adversaries.

The Writer C. Pam Zhang’s novel, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is written in a unique style. The literary critic for National Public Radio (NPR), Annalisa Quinn compares Zhang’s How Much of These Hills Is Gold to William Faulker’s As I Lay Dying. I have not read William Faulker’s As I Lay Dying. According to Quinn, both novels begin "with a body in need of burying” (Quinn 2020). Zhang’s novel, How Much of These Hills Is Gold starts with two American-born Chinese-American children having to bury their father somewhere in the hills of the arid American West (Quinn 2020). The book never states that the children are of Chinese descent, but the book implies heavily that the children are of Chinese descent. The children consider themselves Americans but none of the other characters of the novel except for their father consider themselves to be Americans. According to Quinn, similar to Faulker’s As I Lay Dying, in both novels, the dead person haunts the novel (Zhang 2020). In Zhang’s How Much of These Hills, the descended father even narrates section three. The novel seems to be about belonging. Pam Zhang’s book, How Much of These Hills is Gold is an impressive first novel. This novel was C. Pam Zhang’s first novel. I found Annalisa Quinn’s review of C. Pam Zhang’s book, How Much of These Hills Is Gold, useful in writing this ‘review.’ Works Cited: Quinn, Annalisa. 2020, April 10. “In 'How Much Of These Hills Is Gold,' This Land Is Not Your Land.” National Public Radio. Review: 'How Much Of These Hills Is Gold,' By C Pam Zhang: NPR

I failed to become attached to the main characters and the story meandered a great deal. Very sad story. My favorite part was that it filled in this missing piece to many Western stories we tell. Chinese immigrants clearly helped build this country and were frequently abused while doing so.