“Gripping, adventurous….[What Came West] evokes the horrors of rapacious American expansion by following a neurodivergent trapper, Silas Hall….Odysseus-like….There are ample shootouts and knife fights, a surreal violence akin to graphic scenes in novels by Robert Coover, Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy…. [What Came West] reflects a divided self, a country divided on the cusp of a cataclysmic civil war….In our 250th anniversary year, [Weil] steers clear of grandiose pronouncements….Epic….[Revealing] a nation cobbled together by wonder and woe.” —Hamilton Cain, The New York Times Book Review
“Astonishing. Unraveling the mythology of the Western, 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
“With its finely tuned eerieness and twisting psychological horror, Josh Weil’s What Came West will surely be joining books like Butcher’s Crossing in the ranks of the great Gothic westerns. A remarkable and layered page-turner.” —Téa Obreht, National Book Award finalist and author of Sunrise
“What Came West is a feat of the imagination, as mythic as it is intimate, as tender as it is relentless. It’s also quite simply a masterpiece, one that had me so hooked from its opening pages, I didn’t want to come up for air.” —Tania James, author of Loot
“Like a patient pine or ancient mineral, Josh Weil watches history and humanity in What Came West, with an attention that feels as monumental as the wilderness and wildness he transcendently portrays.” —Samantha Hunt, author of The Unwritten Book
“[A] lush masterpiece…that follows a trapper’s travails in 1849 during the California Gold Rush…[Josh Weil] astonishes in his ability to imbue Silas, whom the reader meets as a murderer, with sympathy and depth. Weil’s revisionist western offers a stirring meditation on solitude and the ravages of the Gold Rush.” —Publishers Weekly *starred review*
“One of the most compelling narrators…in quite some time….Miraculous.” —LitHub
“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…[What Came West is] a powerful novel, rich in language and dark intensity.” —Kirkus Reviews starred review
“Adventurous and propulsive….Weil’s richly researched work is equal parts historical fiction, thriller, and sketchbook of animals and plant life. It’s as much a dedication to humanity as to the harsh reality of what it means to endure for and in spite of mankind.” —Library Journal
“A dark, beautiful, and challenging novel of westward expansion….The rawness and intensity of What Came West recall Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree—the harshness, the urgency, the sudden violence, elevated by Weil’s soaring language.” —Janet Fitch, author of The Revolution of Marina M and Chimes of a Lost Cathedral
“There’s solace, patience, lush beauty, and bristling terror in the words and woods of What Came West, a great novel that mines the California Gold Rush—a time of seismic environmental and societal change—for the truths we need today…..Prepare to be transported; these pages will swallow you up like the jaws of the wilderness.” —Benjamin Percy, author of The Ninth Metal, Red Moon, The Dead Lands, and Thrill Me
“Josh Weil has created that rare thing: a perfect literary western. He joins the good company of Thomas Berger, Charles Portis and Larry McMurtry but brings his own vision to the American West….A tour de force…by a writer at the height of his power.” —Tom Franklin, Edgar Award winner and author of New York Times bestseller Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
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