By Marcel Beijer
I already knew they were nice folks, the residents of Beatty, Nevada. In 2018, I stayed there for a week at a local hotel to do research for my novel Golden Mountains.
The book is set partly in 1990’s Almere, Holland’s youngest town, and partly in 1907, in the Nevada town of Rhyolite. Consequently, the main character travels through time.
Rhyolite is a stone’s throw from Beatty and presents itself as “the Gateway to Death Valley”. And in 1907, during the days of the Gold Rush, the town was literally unimaginably hot. In the middle of a scorching hot desert, its 8,000 residents had access to running water, a swimming pool, a cinema, a theater, banks, a fairground, brothels. Since 1913, Rhyolite has been abandoned and is now a ghost town.
The residents of Beatty thought it odd that a writer from Holland wanted to know all about this ghost town, which not even the Bureau of Land Management cares about anymore.
I took a good look at all the remaining ruins: the school, the really beautiful train station, the amazing Bottle House: the setting for my novel.
Sure, they find the demise of Rhyolite sad: historical writer Alan H. Patera, for example. And caretaker Karl Olson and Amina Anderson and Nicole Altman of the endearing Beatty Museum. They were pleased with the attention for their “ugly town”.
After only two days, as I came walking in, the owner of The Happy Burro pub would routinely start pouring a beer for “the writer from Holland” – as a matter of course.
Golden Mountains appeared in 2020 and was liked by readers. The Americans wanted to read it too, and I felt compelled to serve them as well. The English translation was ready in 2022.
Upon my return, those dear desert dwellers had not forgotten me. I was hugged, and so were my family members who had traveled with me. And during the official book presentation, Nicole and Amina had arranged snacks and drinks, and quite a few residents came out to join.
It was like coming home again.
Which is precisely the theme of Golden Mountains (click for link)
Marcel Beijer is editor-in-chief of Almere Deze Week, last year’s winner of the Dutch News Magazine Journalism Prize, and author of the novel Golden Mountains.
