THE MAN WHO FOUND GOLD FIRST

A Novel

In 1842 California, before the Gold Rush, one man found enough gold to make him rich—and it nearly destroyed him.

A haunting literary Western about obsession, redemption, and what it means to be enough.

A haunting literary Western about obsession, redemption, and what it means to be enough.

MAIN DESCRIPTION:

Jacob Coleman came to California running from his father's suicide and his mother's contempt. When he discovers gold in a remote canyon three years before the Gold Rush, he sees his chance to prove he's not the failure everyone believed him to be.

But the gold owns him before he owns it.

For three years, Jacob lives alone in the canyon, accumulating wealth while losing his humanity. He becomes a mechanism serving obsession. A man dying for metal that can't love him back. A son repeating his father's pattern of self-destruction—just with gold instead of a rope.

When he finally walks away from ten pounds of buried gold, he walks toward something far more valuable: a second chance at being human.

In the fledgling community of Oak Springs, Jacob must learn what his obsession made him forget—that connection is wealth, that family is fortune, and that being enough doesn't require accumulating anything at all.

But can a man this broken truly rebuild? Can obsession be left behind? Can choosing differently once change a life forever?

Before the Rush is a psychologically rich exploration of one man's descent into obsession and his hard-won climb back to humanity. Set against the backdrop of pre-Gold Rush California, this is literary historical fiction in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Kent Haruf's Plainsong, and Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose.

Perfect for readers who love:

• Deeply introspective literary Westerns
• Psychological character studies
• Historical fiction with philosophical depth
• Stories of redemption that feel earned, not easy
• The American West before it became mythologized
• Prose that's both spare and profound