Ambition, Greed, and Love Collide in a Brilliant New Novel

Sanjena Sathian’s stunning Gold Diggers calls into question the relentless American pursuit of success

Our plan, I calculated quickly on pen and paper as I sprawled on Anita’s floor one weekday morning, would involve the abduction of a few thousand dollars’ worth of property. Grand theft. Up to ten years in prison.

If you could drink a beverage that imbued you with the ambition, passion, and energy of someone you admired, would you? What if that beverage were infused with liquid gold? What if you had to steal that gold from the person whose ambition you craved? And what if, by claiming that ambition for yourself, you threatened to drain that person of their own drive?

This is the magic that Neil Narayan and Anita Dayal, two Atlanta teens and the children of parents who immigrated from India, cultivate in Anita’s basement, to varying success. Anita is naturally driven, and thrives from the attention of her beloved mother, who for all intents and purposes is a single mom after her cold and distant husband moves to California. Neil needs a bit more help. He’s aimless and ambivalent about what he wants from life; all he knows is that he is expected to be something more, someone who can compete with his terrifyingly ambitious…