How Much of These Hills Is Gold (2020) is the debut novel of Asian American author C Pam Zhang. It was long-listed for the Booker Prize, named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and honored as one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020. Like the protagonist in her novel, Zhang is the product of two cultures. Though she was born in Beijing, her family relocated to America when she was four. In addition to moving to numerous cities throughout her childhood, Zhang has also lived in several countries. She admits that like her protagonist Lucy, she is still searching for home.

How Much of These Hills Is Gold, divided into four parts, is set during the California Gold Rush and spans 25 years between 1842 and 1867. The story is not told chronologically but begins in 1862 before skipping back and forth in time. The temporal shift of Parts 2 through 4 helps illuminate events that take place in Part 1. The story is told primarily using limited third-person narration from the viewpoint of a 12-year-old orphan named Lucy. Part 3 shifts to the first-person perspective of Lucy’s dead father. The events described in the book take place in the hills of Northern California, the small town of Sweetwater, and the city of San Francisco.

The story follows the lives of two orphans who are trying to find a proper burial place for their father’s corpse. During their trek, the elder sibling recalls events from her family’s past and their attempts to prospect for gold that always ended in tragedy. In telling the tale of a girl longing to find a permanent home, the book examines the myths of the Old West, deceptive appearances, and the sad consequences of an absence of identity.

This study guide refers to the 2020 Kindle edition of the book.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with a dilemma. Twelve-year-old Lucy and her 11-year-old brother Sam need to find a way to bury their recently deceased father. They live in a dismal hill town in the California goldfields. Although they are poverty stricken, no one will help them because they look Chinese. Ironically, the children are American-born but are not accepted as part of the community because of their Asian features.

The children set out on a quest for a proper burial ground, strapping a chest with their father’s remains to their horse. As they travel, more of their past is revealed through Lucy’s recollections. Their father Ba was an unsuccessful gold prospector who never gave up his dream of striking it rich. Consequently, he dragged his family from one backwater settlement to another, eking out a living digging coal. Sam was born a girl but prefers to identify as male. Ba briefly succeeded at mining a deposit of gold before the family’s wealth was stolen by greedy townsfolk. The children’s mother died three years earlier, giving birth to a stillborn son. Their father, distraught with grief, turned to drink and became abusive toward Lucy.

After many setbacks, the siblings finally find an appropriate place to inter their father. Once this task is accomplished, the narration shifts to Lucy’s dead father, who tells quite a different tale of the family’s past from the one Lucy believes to be true. He says he found the first chunk of gold in 1842, long before White miners came to California. Although Asian, he is a native-born American, though nobody believes this. Ba also reveals that the children’s mother didn’t die in childbirth. She stole the family’s last piece of gold to make her escape, leaving Ba to hold the family together as best he could.

Lucy’s narrative continues after she and Sam part ways. She drifts through life, first as a laundress, then as the friend of a rich girl. Sam returns years later. He explains that he struck gold, which was then stolen by some White men who are now pursuing him because he stole it back. The siblings flee to San Francisco, where Lucy places Sam on a ship bound for China. The gold men catch up with her, and she works as a prostitute to pay off Sam’s debt to them. When she is released from her obligation a year later, she still doesn’t know what she wants or where to find a true home.