Gold Diggers

Author(s): Sanjena Sathian

Fiction

A magical realist coming-of-age story, Gold Diggers skewers the model minority myth to tell a hilarious and moving story about immigrant identity, community, and the underside of ambition.


A floundering second-generation teenager growing up in the Bush-era Atlanta suburbs, Neil Narayan is funny and smart but struggles to bear the weight of expectations of his family and their Asian American enclave. He tries to want their version of success, but mostly, Neil just wants his neighbor across the cul-de-sac, Anita Dayal.


When he discovers that Anita is the beneficiary of an ancient, alchemical potion made from stolen gold—a “lemonade” that harnesses the ambition of the gold’s original owner—Neil sees his chance to get ahead. But events spiral into a tragedy that rips their community apart. Years later in the Bay Area, Neil still bristles against his community’s expectations—and finds he might need one more hit of that lemonade, no matter the cost.


Sanjena Sathian’s astonishing debut offers a fine-grained, profoundly intelligent, and bitingly funny investigation into what’s required to make it in America.


 

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'In a perfect alchemical blend of familiar and un-, Gold Diggers takes a wincingly hilarious coming-of-age story, laces it with magical realism and a trace of satire, and creates a world that's both achingly familiar and marvelously inventive. Written with such assurance it's hard to believe it's Sanjena Sathian's debut, this is a dizzyingly original, fiercely funny, deeply wise novel about the seductive powers - and dangers - of borrowed ambition' Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere

'Is the American dream about hard work and sacrifice or is it about the lure of the Gold Rush, of quick riches there for the taking? Greed, regret and love are all at work here in Sathian's completely original, utterly absorbing, complex and confident debut novel. A bravura performance from an exciting new voice' Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

'A work of 24-karat genius... Sathian has created a funny, compassionate, tragic novel of astonishing cultural richness... The result is a novel of Indian magic and modern technology, a parody of New World ambition and an elegy of assimilation' Washington Post

'[A]chingly real reminders of what it was like to be an adolescent in post-9/11 America, feeling the weight of your parents' dreams on your shoulders... The tension Sathian builds is one of teenage insecurity swelling into adulthood, until disillusion overthrows the tyranny of American perfectionism... exquisite prose humming with contagious anxiety' New York Times Book Review

'This terrific debut novel uses heists and alchemy to deconstruct immigrant ambition, striving and sin... what makes the novel so compelling is the playfulness with which Sathian deconstructs it. You feel for the characters and the ways they have been warped by their pursuit of greatness and the ways they are haunted by their sins - but also, there are heists and alchemy. It's a blast' Vox

'The coming-of-age genre meets magical realism meets heist caper... Funny and exciting, it's an entertaining new twist on the immigrant experience' CNN

 

General Fields

  • : 9781398509023
  • : Simon & Schuster, Limited
  • : Simon & Schuster, Limited
  • : May 2021
  • : {"length"=>["9.213"], "width"=>["6.024"], "units"=>["Inches"]}
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Sanjena Sathian
  • : Paperback
  • : 2108
  • : English
  • : 813.6
  • : 352