How Much of these Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang: book review

How Much of these Hills is Gold (2020) is set during the American Gold Rush from 1848.

Brother and sister, 11-year-old Sam and 12-year-old Lucy, are orphaned when their Chinese parents die after migrating to America to strike it rich.

With their mother ‘long gone’, they need to bury their father in accordance with their traditions, but this is not easy in this western mining town, because this is not their home. They need to find a home. They travel eastwards towards the coast, across the harsh landscape, with their father’s body.

Hunger reshapes them. They need to hunt and fend for themselves. ‘For three months, although they’ve travelled in fear and in hiding, Sam saw it as a game. People, mountains, weather, jackals, snakes: there is a lot to fear. This is about their travels, their rivalry, and their bonding. During their journey, the words of their father haunt them: ‘Stick by your family.’

It is also about the traditions that Sam and Lucy have learned from their parents, and the new traditions they need to gain in order to survive and thrive in a new land.

Original in its use of language and style, this is nevertheless not my preferred style. However, the symbolism is effective, as is the way it portrays people lost in the countryside and lost in a country where they hope to belong. For me though, it doesn’t evoke the sensitivities that I was expecting, and therefore some intensity is also lost.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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