{"product_id":"what-came-west","title":"What Came West","description":"\n\u003ctable align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd class=\"productDetailSmallElements\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eBiographical Note\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJOSH WEIL is the author of the novel \n\u003ci\u003eThe Great Glass Sea, \u003c\/i\u003ethe novella collection \n\u003ci\u003eThe New Valley, \u003c\/i\u003eand the story collection \n\u003ci\u003eThe Age of Perpetual Light\u003c\/i\u003e. He is a Fulbright fellow and has been awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a \"5 Under 35\" award from the National Book Foundation, the California Book Award, and a Pushcart Prize. For the past dozen years, he has called the Sierra Nevada of Northern California home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eBrief Description\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Author of the New York Times Notable The Great Glass Sea (\"The most unexpected second book by a writer of note to appear in years.\" -John Freeman, Boston Globe) returns with a gripping adventure story that probes the expansive, shifting wilds of the Sierra Nevada during the Gold Rush. Since childhood, Silas Hall has never been at ease with people. Only alone in nature, can he find peace. He is relentlessly bullied by classmates and even proximity to his own family fills him with dread. Still, despite his increasing isolation from others, he manages to forge a connection with Delia, a non-verbal housekeeper, and is surprised by the strength of the bond he feels with the child they come to share. But as his son, Elisha, grows up, even that closeness becomes more than Silas can bear. So, he leaves his family to travel west, journeying ever farther in search of a life in which he might belong. Under the cover of the wilderness, Silas burrows deeper into seclusion. By late 1840, he is one of few white people to have crossed the Sierra Nevada, where he coexists with the native Nisenan villagers at a mutually wary distance. But this fragile peace is disrupted when the promises of the Gold Rush bring a sudden flood of other whites west, leading Silas to commit an act of violence that will drive the last chapter of his life and incur upon the world he loves the full wrath of the world he fled. In interweaving parts, one a third-person account of Silas's flight from the manhunt that pursues him and the other an epistolary narrative from Silas to his abandoned, What Came West confronts different forms of American inheritance: the yearning for freedom and the grandeur of the wild, the corrupting nature of greed, the unforgiving ideals of Manifest Destiny, and the environmental destruction and genocide wrought upon native peoples living on the land that would become known as \"Gold Country.\" What Came West is the story of a soul split after a defining moment and the ways in which one man tries to save himself and the world he loves as it vanishes beneath his feet\"-- Provided by publisher.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Gripping, adventurous.... \n\u003ci\u003e[What Came West] \u003c\/i\u003eevokes the horrors of rapacious American expansion by following a neurodivergent trapper, Silas Hall....Odysseus-like....There are ample shootouts and knife fights, a surreal violence akin to graphic scenes in novels by Robert Coover, Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy.... [ \n\u003ci\u003eWhat Came West] \u003c\/i\u003ereflects a divided self, a country divided on the cusp of a cataclysmic civil war....In our 250th anniversary year, [Weil] steers clear of grandiose pronouncements....Epic....[Revealing] a nation cobbled together by wonder and woe.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Hamilton Cain, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Astonishing. Unraveling the mythology of the Western, Weil tells the story anew: a beautiful, ruminative, bloody, terrifying and brilliant book about a chapter in the life of one man and in the life of our country. Unmissable.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eLess\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"With its finely tuned eerieness and twisting psychological horror, Josh Weil's \n\u003ci\u003eWhat Came West\u003c\/i\u003e will surely be joining books like \n\u003ci\u003eButcher's Crossing\u003c\/i\u003e in the ranks of the great Gothic westerns. A remarkable and layered page-turner.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e --\u003c\/i\u003eTéa Obreht, National Book Award finalist and author of \u003ci\u003eSunrise\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003eWhat Came West\u003c\/i\u003e is a feat of the imagination, as mythic as it is intimate, as tender as it is relentless. It's also quite simply a masterpiece, one that had me so hooked from its opening pages, I didn't want to come up for air.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Tania James, author of \u003ci\u003eLoot\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Like a patient pine or ancient mineral, Josh Weil watches history and humanity in \n\u003ci\u003eWhat Came West\u003c\/i\u003e, with an attention that feels as monumental as the wilderness and wildness he transcendently portrays.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Samantha Hunt, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Unwritten Book \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"[A] lush masterpiece...that follows a trapper's travails in 1849 during the California Gold Rush...[Josh Weil] astonishes in his ability to imbue Silas, whom the reader meets as a murderer, with sympathy and depth. Weil's revisionist western offers a stirring meditation on solitude and the ravages of the Gold Rush.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e --Publishers Weekly *starred review* \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"One of the most compelling narrators...in quite some time....Miraculous.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLitHub\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\"A reclusive trapper rejected by society fights for survival on a westward trek filled with treacherous encounters....Written under the influence of Cormac McCarthy and perhaps James Joyce...[ \n\u003ci\u003eWhat Came West\u003c\/i\u003e is] a powerful novel, rich in language and dark intensity.\" -- \n\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews starred review\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Adventurous and propulsive....Weil's richly researched work is equal parts historical fiction, thriller, and sketchbook of animals and plant life. It's as much a dedication to humanity as to the harsh reality of what it means to endure for and in spite of mankind.\" \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Library Journal\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A dark, beautiful, and challenging novel of westward expansion....The rawness and intensity of \n\u003ci\u003eWhat Came West\u003c\/i\u003e recall Cormac McCarthy's \n\u003ci\u003eSuttree\u003c\/i\u003e--the harshness, the urgency, the sudden violence, elevated by Weil's soaring language.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Janet Fitch, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Revolution of Marina M \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eChimes of a Lost Cathedral\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"There's solace, patience, lush beauty, and bristling terror in the words and woods of What Came West, a great novel that mines the California Gold Rush--a time of seismic environmental and societal change--for the truths we need today.....Prepare to be transported; these pages will swallow you up like the jaws of the wilderness.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Benjamin Percy, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Ninth Metal\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eRed Moon\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Dead Lands\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThrill Me\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Josh Weil has created that rare thing: a perfect literary western. He joins the good company of Thomas Berger, Charles Portis and Larry McMurtry but brings his own vision to the American West....A tour de force...by a writer at the height of his power.\" \n\u003cb\u003e--Tom Franklin, Edgar Award winner and author of \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller \u003ci\u003eCrooked Letter, Crooked Letter\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher Marketing\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eA gripping tale of murder and pursuit set against the shifting Sierra Nevada during the Gold Rush, where ambition, violence, and destiny collide. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eWhat Came West\u003c\/i\u003e is astonishing. Unraveling the mythology of the Western with a genius for insight and description, Weil tells the story anew: a beautiful, ruminative, bloody, terrifying and brilliant book about a chapter in the life of one man and in the life of our country. Unmissable.\" --Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eLess\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSierra Nevada, 1840s, just before the Gold Rush ignites. Silas Hall has never belonged anywhere except the wild. Bullied as a child and uneasy even within his own family, he finds brief solace in love and fatherhood before the pull of the frontier overwhelms him. One day he heads west, chasing a life that might finally make sense. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhat follows is a swift, pulse-pounding journey into the mountains, where Silas becomes one of the first white settlers to cross into the Sierra Nevada. He forges a precarious peace with the Indigenous people who live there--until the Gold Rush crashes in with violent force. As thousands flood the region, the balance shatters, and Silas commits murder, a desperate act that alters the course of every life around him, including his own. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTaut and propulsive, \n\u003ci\u003eWhat Came West\u003c\/i\u003e is told in two parallel voices--one a tense, third-person account of Silas on the run, and the other a confessional letter from Silas to the son he left behind--and confronts many different forms of American inheritance, in all its danger, emotional voltage, and mythic momentum. Weil's masterpiece is a fierce, heart-driven portrait of an outsider racing toward belonging and barreling headlong into consequence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations:\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/span\u003e 04\/15\/2026 (EAN 9780385550994, Hardcover) - *Starred Review\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eBooklist\u003c\/span\u003e 05\/01\/2026 (EAN 9780385550994, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/span\u003e 05\/08\/2026 pg. 1 (EAN 9780385550994, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/span\u003e 06\/01\/2026 (EAN 9780385550994, Hardcover) - *Starred Review\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n","brand":"Doubleday Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51496204140822,"sku":"9780385550994","price":38.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0857\/9910\/8886\/files\/9780385550994.jpg?v=1783057479","url":"https:\/\/lusper.myshopify.com\/products\/what-came-west","provider":"Lusperbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}