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.
