What Came West (A Novel)
List Price:
$32.00
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Product Details
Author:
Josh Weil
Format:
Hardcover
Pages:
512
Publisher:
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (June 2, 2026)
Imprint:
Doubleday
Language:
English
Audience:
General/trade
ISBN-13:
9780385550994
ISBN-10:
0385550995
Weight:
26.4oz
Dimensions:
6.44" x 9.44" x 1.06"
File:
RandomHouse-PRH_Book_Company_PRH_PRT_Onix_full_active_D20260705T120112_156890261-20260705.xml
Folder:
RandomHouse
List Price:
$32.00
Country of Origin:
United States
Pub Discount:
65
Case Pack:
12
As low as:
$24.64
Publisher Identifier:
P-RH
Discount Code:
A
QuickShip:
Yes
Overview
A gripping tale of murder and pursuit set against the shifting Sierra Nevada during the Gold Rush, where ambition, violence, and destiny collide.
“What Came West 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 Less
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.
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.
Taut and propulsive, What Came West 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.
“What Came West 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 Less
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.
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.
Taut and propulsive, What Came West 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.
