C Pam Zhang's debut novel reimagines the American West through Chinese immigrant eyes. During the waning Gold Rush era, twelve-year-old Lucy and her sibling Sam roam an unforgiving landscape carrying their father's unburied corpse, searching for a proper resting place. As they journey, memories blend with myth, revealing their family's fractured history—Ba's broken dreams, Ma's ghostly presence, and their struggle for belonging in a hostile land that denies them citizenship. Blending lyrical prose with subverted Western tropes, this haunting story explores identity, family, and the question of who has the right to claim America as home.
