HOW MUCH OF THESE HILLS IS GOLD by C Pam Zhang

The first part of this book reminded me so much of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.  Two orphaned children in the western U.S. are transporting their father’s rapidly decomposing body to an as yet undetermined burial place, as appendages drop off along the way.  They are abandoning their hardscrabble life in a mining community in the late 1800s for an uncertain future after Lucy fails to keep secret the family’s stash of gold bullion.  Lucy is twelve, and her sister Sam is nine, but partly due to their father’s urging after losing a newborn son, Sam(antha) passes as a boy.  Eventually, Lucy eschews life on the road, and their paths diverge, at least for a while, as both are looking for a place to call home.  The defining characteristic of these two kids is that they are Chinese-Americans, born in this country but forever treated differently because they look different.  Their quest for a sense of belonging is virtually unattainable, and their suffering, especially Lucy’s, has been augmented by physical abuse at the hands of their father after the loss of their mother.  We also learn the history of Lucy and Sam’s parents, and it is not pretty.  In fact, their story is so horrific, due to a catastrophe of their own making, that it’s a wonder they maintain any semblance of sanity afterward.  Although the pace of this novel definitely accelerates at about the halfway point, it still did not move me.  Plus, several stones in the plot are left unturned, such as whether Lucy finds out about her parents’ past, and we are left wondering about what happened to the kids’ mother.  I needed more closure on these two points, and the ending raises even more unanswered questions, so that the book feels unfinished.