GOLD DIGGERS

Neil Narayan is a teenager in the Atlanta suburbs who can't seem to summon the relentless drive of the people around him. His immigrant parents have big hopes for his future, and he makes an honest attempt to want what they want. What he actually wants, though, is the girl next door, Anita Dayal.

Anita is hiding something. With her mother, Anjali, she has been making an old alchemical brew out of stolen gold jewelry. Whoever drinks it takes on the ambition of the person who first owned the gold. Anita only needs a small push to get into Harvard. Neil needs far more, and when he joins their scheme, things go wrong in a way that ends in tragedy and tears their community apart.

Sanjena Sathian's debut novel is a funny, sharp-eyed story about growing up and working out who you are. It blends social satire with magical realism, moves across two continents, two coasts and four different eras, and asks what a community is prepared to do in pursuit of the American dream.