Gold Diggers

by Sanjena Sathian

Sanjena Sathian’s wry debut is “a work of 24-karat genius,” said Ron Charles in The Washington Post. At first a social satire focused on the perfectionistic striving of one IndianAmerican family, it “rises to another level” when Neil, the protagonist, learns that the dazzling girl next door regularly imbibes a potion made from melted gold. By the time we leap forward a decade, this “compassionate, tragic” novel has reaffirmed that the experience of the children of immigrants is central to America’s story.