Child in the Valley

June 7, 2021
Sauer debuts with a riveting cautionary tale of greed set during the California gold rush. A baby boy is orphaned at birth in 1832 St. Louis, then adopted by the doctor who delivered him, Dr. Gaines, and named Joshua. As Joshua grows, his adopted father trains him in the medical arts, and then, in 1849, after Gaines dies and his house is sold to pay off debt, Joshua leaves St. Louis, hoping to gain a spot as a doctor on an expedition to Sacramento Valley, where he plans to strike it rich and erase the memory of Gaines’s financial failures. He is invited to join the mysterious Renard and his traveling companions: Englishman G. Quillard, the formerly enslaved Free Ray, and twins Clayton and Klayton. As the motley gang of forty-niners reach their destination, they abandon all pretense of humanity and begin to steal from and kill others in their single-minded pursuit of gold. Caught in this nightmare, Joshua examines his own descent into depravity and aims to redeem himself. While the prose’s biblical intonations can feel a bit mannered, Sauer’s imagistic style credibly affects an apocalyptic tone while describing the desolate landscape. This is an accomplished literary western. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.

July 1, 2021
A young man comes of age at the dawn of the California Gold Rush. When 17-year-old Joshua Gaines, orphaned and fleeing a man bent on collecting a debt owed by his physician foster father, leaves St. Louis in 1849, he knows his road in life will not be easy. But even his worst imaginings don't prepare him for the nightmare he'll experience when he meets up in Independence, Missouri, with mysterious and sulfurous smelling Renard, formerly enslaved Free Ray, and three other men bound for Sutter's Mill in California's Sacramento Valley to seek their fortune in the newly discovered gold deposits there. Sauer efficiently portrays the danger and routine hardships of the small party's 1,500-mile trek along with other emigrants without ignoring the harsh beauty of the American wilderness. But once the band reaches California, Joshua's story grows even darker, as he forsakes his fruitless efforts to pan for gold to ally himself with what has been Renard's plan from the beginning--to amass great wealth quickly by stealing it. Only occasionally lapsing into self-consciously literary prose, Sauer balances vivid scenes of violence and betrayal with glimpses of Joshua's emotional turmoil as he's drawn more deeply into Renard's scheme, one that with each murderous theft transports him further from his dream of following his father into the medical profession. The young man's conflict climaxes when he and the others encounter a religious community that brings him face to face with the depth of his transgressions. The ruthlessness of Renard's gang becomes a metaphor for the history of White civilization's westward expansion in the 19th century, but Joshua's own journey concludes on a note that offers, if not full redemption, at least a glimmer of hope. Morality clashes with greed and savagery on the American frontier.

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