In "California Gold," John Jakes combines history and drama, set against the panorama of California. Sweeping from 1886 to 1921, the novel charts California's course through the railroad monopoly, the land boom and the great San Francisco earthquake.
James Macklin Chance, the son of a Pennsylvania coal miner, is one of those "men and women of adventurous spirit" who made their way to California in the late 1800s to find their fortune.Chance walks across the country, enduring summer heat and freezing snow. He is hungry, dirty, and often despairing. But whenever his spirits are at their lowest, he finds courage in a little guidebook, "The Emigrant's Guide to California & Its Gold Fields" by T. Fowler Haines. His favorite line: "The El Dorado of the early voyagers to America has been discovered at last, giving riches to some, and new hope to all."
By the time he reaches California, the gold rush is over. However, Chance has vowed he will "never be poor again, never be cold again." After years of struggle and hard work, he strikes it rich - not in gold, as he had dreamed - but in oil. And despite good luck and bad, his fortune grows and grows.
The rest of the novel details Chance's upward spiral to fame and fortune. His marriage, however, is ill-fated, and that ruthless part of Chance that makes him so successful in business ruins his relationships with family and friends.
Despite the novel's length and assortment of fictional and historical characters, there is no real tension in "California Gold."
Jakes provides much historical detail, but he doesn't adhere strictly to the factual record, as he explains in the novel's afterword. As one example: "I arbitrarily advanced the commercial introduction of the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost by one year," Jakes explains, "because I wanted Mack to drive one of these great cars."
The author also provides brief notes on people and stories touched on in the novel, including William Randolph Hearst, Jack London, James J. Corbett and John Muir.