MENDOCINO CO., 10/20/26 — Silas Hall crosses the Sierra Nevada in the 1840s on a mission to make sense of his life. He begins to find a measure of peace, but quickly the Gold Rush intrudes with its flood of driven fortune-seekers. Chaos and violence follow, and Silas commits a desperate murder that alters every life around him.
These are the bare bones of Josh Weil’s novel, What Came West, of which Tania James writes, “A feat of the imagination, as mythic as it is intimate, as tender as it is relentless… A masterpiece.”
Kirkus Reviews gave the novel a starred review: “A reclusive trapper rejected by society fights for survival on a westward trek filled with treacherous encounters… Written under the influence of Cormac McCarthy and perhaps James Joyce… a powerful novel, rich in language and dark intensity.”
The novel puts readers in the midst of an on-the-ground experience of westward expansion and 19th century mores. As James notes, “I didn’t want to come up for air.”
Josh Weil will be at the Gallery Bookshop, 319 Kasten St., Mendocino, Saturday, Oct. 24, from 1 to 3 p.m.