The Prospectors (Barnes & Noble Book Club Edition)

by Ariel Djanikian

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

An expansive story told with beautiful prose, The Prospectors is the story of an ill-gotten inheritance a century in the making, and the fluctuating morality of it. This captivating novel is told in the heart of the gold rush and in hindsight one-hundred years later, examining the lasting damage done by it.

This Barnes & Noble Book Club Edition will have a unique jacket and endpapers, an author essay and a helpful reading group guide.

A sweeping rags-to-riches story of survival, greed, and injustice across American history following a family transformed by the Klondike Gold Rush, perfect for readers of The Luminaries and How Much of These Hills Is Gold.

“Told in glimmering prose and rich with historical detail, The Prospectors immerses us in the Yukon Gold Rush so deeply, you can feel the grit on your hands.”—Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Our Missing Hearts

The middle daughter of struggling California fruit farmers, Alice Bush is accustomed to feeling inferior and destitute. But when her elder sister’s husband strikes a vein of gold in the Yukon Territory, Alice finally seizes control of her destiny by joining a wave of white settlers making the dangerous trek to the Klondike.

What follows is an awakening of ambition for the quietly opportunistic Alice, who, by luck and circumstance, becomes tightly intertwined in her sister and brother-in-law’s newfound fortune, as well as the beginning of a generations-long family quest for wealth that unfolds against the icy Canadian wilderness and the booming oilfields of California.

One hundred years later, in 2015, Alice’s great-great-granddaughter Anna must grapple with moral conflict and questions of justice as she travels to the Klondike to bequeath her would-be inheritance to the First Nations peoples who paid the price for its creation.

Bringing the Klondike and turn-of-the-century California to vivid life, Ariel Djanikian weaves an ambitious narrative of claiming the American Dream and its rippling effects across generations. Sweeping and awe-inspiring, The Prospectors is an unforgettable story of family loyalties that interrogates the often-overlooked hostilities and inequities born during the Gold Rush era.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063379084
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/03/2023
Edition description:	Barnes & Noble Book Club Edition
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	5,177
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.30(d)

Editorial Reviews

Told in glimmering prose and rich with historical detail, The Prospectors immerses us in the Yukon Gold Rush so deeply, you can feel the grit on your hands. A sweeping adventure story that explores the deep hunger for power, the muddy morality of what we do to get it, and the possibilities—and limitations—of making reparations for past wrongs.” — Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Our Missing Hearts

“Vivid and precise, this epic story asks what happens after the gold rush, to those whose pockets are deep and to those whose pockets have been picked. Djanikian brings the historical details to life as well as the moral questions of the present in this rich, glittering novel.” — Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow

“An epic story of adventure, The Prospectors is lavishly researched and deeply felt. A fascinating, page-turning look at the true price of the American dream.”  — Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street

"Beautifully drawn and deeply moving, The Prospectors, illuminates the rich and brutal landscape of the Yukon Gold Rush, along with the triumphs and tragedies of those men and women who claimed it as their own. A brilliant and powerful story, steeped in little-known history, Djankian's new novel shimmers like gold."  — Alyson Richman, #1 international bestselling author of The Thread Collectors

“With The Prospectors, Djanikian brings the novelist's microscope to the archives, taking the real history of the Berry family of California and exploring the motivations and personal dynamics and parallel lives that are so often left out of triumphalist histories of the west. The result is an illuminating exploration of the greed and human mess that lies beneath settler histories—and a truly gripping family story.” — Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State

“Fast-paced…Exciting to read…The Office of Mercy is an indisputable page-turner with a surprising ending.” — NPR

“Intriguing premise… [a] thoughtful debut.” — Publishers Weekly on The Office of Mercy

“An action-packed novel of fascinating ideas…. Serious, entertaining, and seriously entertaining.” — Charles Yu, National Book Award-winning author of Interior Chinatown, on The Office of Mercy

From the Publisher