{"product_id":"what-came-west-hardcover","title":"What Came West - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJosh Weil\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA gripping tale of murder and pursuit set against the shifting Sierra Nevada during the Gold Rush, where ambition, violence, and destiny collide. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\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 \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSierra 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhat 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTaut 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.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eJOSH WEIL is the author of the novel \u003ci\u003eThe Great Glass Sea, \u003c\/i\u003ethe novella collection \u003ci\u003eThe New Valley, \u003c\/i\u003eand the story collection \u003ci\u003eThe Age of Perpetual Light\u003c\/i\u003e. He is a Fulbright fellow and has been awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a \"5 Under 35\" award from the National Book Foundation, the California Book Award, and a Pushcart Prize. For the past dozen years, he has called the Sierra Nevada of Northern California home.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 512\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.12 x 9.38 x 6.34 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e June 02, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45272589009072,"sku":"9780385550994","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1121\/0060\/files\/XBGLY0vXFG9780385550994.webp?v=1781709539","url":"https:\/\/sidekicksptown.com\/products\/what-came-west-hardcover","provider":"Sidekicks Ptown","version":"1.0","type":"link"}