Gold Diggers: A Novel

Category: Book
By (author): Sathian, Sanjena
Subject:  FICTION / General
  FICTION / Literary
  FICTION / Magical Realism
Publisher: Penguin Press
Published: April 2021
Format: Book-hardcover
Pages: 352
Size: 9.00in x 6.00in x 0.87in
Availability:
Unavailable

Additional Notes

From The Publisher*"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...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

A brilliant Indian-American magical realist coming of age story and the debut of a major talent

Spanning two continents, two coasts, and four epochs, Gold Diggers expertly balances social satire and magical realism in a classic striver story that skewers the model minority narrative, asking what a community must do to achieve the American dream. In razor sharp and deeply funny prose, Sathian perfectly captures what it is to grow up as a member of a family, of a diaspora, and of the American meritocracy. This blockbuster novel both entertains and levels a critique of what Americans of color must do to make their way.

A floundering second-generation teenager growing up in the Bush-era Atlanta suburbs, Neil Narayan is authentic, funny, and smart. He just doesn't share the same drive as everyone around him. His perfect older sister is headed to Duke. His parents' expectations for him are just as high. He tries to want this version of success, but mostly, Neil just wants his neighbor across the cul-de-sac, Anita Dayal.

But Anita has a secret: she and her mother Anjali have been brewing an ancient alchemical potion from stolen gold that harnesses the ambition of the jewelry's original owner. Anjali's own mother in Bombay didn't waste the precious potion on her daughter, favoring her sons instead. Anita, on the other hand, just needs a little boost to get into Harvard. But when Neil--who needs a whole lot more--joins in the plot, events spiral into a tragedy that rips their community apart.

Ten years later, Neil is an oft-stoned Berkeley history grad student studying the California gold rush. His high school cohort has migrated to Silicon Valley, where he reunites with Anita and resurrects their old habit of gold theft--only now, the stakes are higher. Anita's mother is in trouble, and only gold can save her. Anita and Neil must pull off one last heist.

Gold Diggers is a fine-grained, profoundly intelligent, and bitingly funny investigation in to questions of identity and coming of age--that tears down American shibboleths.
Review Quote*"Dazzling...the sharp characterizations bring humor and contemplation in equal measure, touching on the pressures Neil and Anita face to produce a legacy that honors their parents' sacrifices. Sathian's bildungsroman isn't one to miss." -Publishers Weekly

"Out of [a] nugget of magical realism, Sathian spins pure magic… Filled with pathos, humor, slices of American history, and an adrenaline-pumping heist, Sathian's spectacular debut also highlights the steep costs of the all-American dream… Pure gold… YAs will find much to embrace in Neeraj's dynamite and touching quest to find himself." -Booklist, starred review 
 
"A refreshing tweak of the assimilation novel . . . Sathian artfully and convincingly conjures [this] world . . . Sathian has a knack for page-turner prose, but the story has plenty of heft. A winningly revamped King Midas tale." -Kirkus
 
"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

"Gold Diggers is so many things-truly funny, insightful, smart, and filled with wonderful characters. I loved reading this novel, and loved watching Neil Narayan grow up and grapple with the America his immigrant parents believed in. Neil's journey to figuring out what he believes, which includes a multi-layered exploration into the properties of gold, and his strange and wonderful friendship with his next door neighbor, Anita, make this story unmissable." -Ann Napolitano, bestselling author of Dear Edward

"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, New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club

"What a dynamic and exciting debut! Sathian builds such an inviting world of layers and times, all knit together by voice, vibrant imagery and palpable groundedness. A total delight."-Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade  

"Sanjena Sathian's Gold Diggers is a sparkling treasure, hilarious and full of insight." -Rajesh Parameswaran, author of I Am an Executioner

"I'm not sure if I should praise Sanjena Sathian for spinning such a lively and nervy narrative or thank her for her generosity as field guide, bringing me deep into Indian-American family life and the underbelly of Silicon Valley optimization culture. A tenderly imaginative tale of ambition and the burden of tradition, Gold Diggers is the American novel we need right now. Bracingly original, riveting to the last drop."-Lauren Mechling, author of How Could She 

"Sanjena Sathian's Gold Diggers made me feel utterly inadequate as a writer. Her writing is engaging and the lush world she creates within the novel was a great joy to explore. We'll be hearing from her for years to come."-Sopan Deb, author of Missed Translations

"From Bombay to the Bay Area, Sanjena Sathian's expansive debut novel upends our ideas of what it takes to make it in America. Smart, funny, and completely engrossing, Gold Diggers is everything a novel should be." -Andrew Ridker, author of The Altruists

"Searching, intelligent, with a premise as flawless as the gold at its center, Gold Diggers follows a generation whose ambitions are shaping the America we live in today. As imaginative as it is idea-driven, as compassionate as it is angry, part heist novel, part coming of age story, part ghost story, romance, and tragedy, it renders all its opposites in a fast-paced, perfectly crafted crucible of a plot. This is a perfect first novel: brilliant, funny, and secretly, privately, quietly romantic. A Great American Novel for the 21st century." -Amy Parker, author of Beasts and Children and winner of the Calvino Prize

"Vivid, delightful, and wonderfully weird, Gold Diggers glitters with a unique and stirring brilliance. Sanjena Sathian is an incredibly exciting new writer!"-Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will and National Book Award Finalist

"Gold Diggers is a knock-out-a hilarious send-up of the immigrant pressure to succeed and the challenges of growing up with a hyphenated identity in the American South. It's also a devastating meditation on history, love, grief, wealth, and familial bonds. Whether you want to laugh or cry, meet ghosts, plan a heist, or live forever, you can find what you're looking for in these sparkling pages." -Maria Kuznetsova, author of Oksana, Behave!

"Gold Diggers is an auspicious-auriferous?-debut. Part coming-of-age story about the immigrant experience, part Gogolian heist comedy about soul-sapping gold, it's also a timely satire of greed, status anxiety, Ivy striving, and the long nightmare of the American dream. The novel is particularly brilliant and funny on the different forms that ambition takes, and the different ways it can deform you. It's an enviably smart and ambitious critique of envy, smarts, and ambition, which inspires some of the same jealousy it diagnoses. Like Sathian's characters, you almost want to drink whatever jewelry she was wearing while writing it." -Bennett Sims, author of White Dialogues 
Biographical NoteA Paul and Daisy Soros fellow, Sanjena Sathian is a 2019 graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has worked as a reporter in Mumbai and San Francisco, with nonfiction bylines for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Food & Wine, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more. And her award-winning short fiction has been published in Boulevard, Joyland, Salt Hill, and The Master's Review.