{"product_id":"what-came-west-a-novel","title":"What Came West","description":"\u003cb\u003eA gripping tale of murder and pursuit set against the shifting Sierra Nevada during the Gold Rush, where ambition, violence, and destiny collide.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\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\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Sierra 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.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e What 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.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Taut and propulsive, \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.","brand":"Unity Books","offers":[{"title":"What Came West A Novel","offer_id":46308157325509,"sku":null,"price":72.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0625\/6679\/3413\/files\/978-0-385-55099-4.jpg?v=1780550312","url":"https:\/\/unitybooks.myshopify.com\/products\/what-came-west-a-novel","provider":"Unity Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}