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A Novel
by Ariel Djanikian
A sweeping rags-to-riches story of survival and greed across American history following a family transformed by the Klondike Gold Rush.
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.
"Thought-provoking … [Main character] Alice's morally complex character and vividly evoked experiences are gripping. This offers ample rewards." —Publishers Weekly
"Djanikian creates strong emotional attachments and builds subtle tension for readers. By explaining the gold rush's historical background and narrating everyday life for prospectors, she provides a solid framework for exploring issues of racism, settler colonialism, and exploitation of natural resources. This engaging book will appeal to fans of Leon Uris, James Michener, and Herman Wouk." —Booklist
"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
"The Prospectors is smart, surprising, and epic: the sort of adventure that brings to life both a nineteenth-century gold rush and a twenty-first century fight for the family riches that remain. It's more than a golden nugget of a novel. It's the motherlode and I absolutely loved it." —Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant
"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
This information about The Prospectors was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ariel Djanikian holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan and is the author The Office of Mercy. Her work has been published in Tin House, The Paris Review, The Rumpus, The Millions, and elsewhere. She has received a Fulbright and a Hopwood, among other awards. She teaches at Georgetown University and lives near Washington, DC, with her family.
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