A.P. Chapman is a failure as a gold miner, but he is a master at getting lost. On an ill-fated prospecting trip, A.P. stumbles into a spectacular alpine valley, which he bets will be a hub of agriculture and commerce, feeding legions of Sierra Nevada miners, timbermen and emigrants. While A.P. chases riches in California, his wife, Carrie, and their young boys wait in Connecticut to see how and where they might again fit into his dreams.

The only certainties in the West are the monumental challenges of scratching out a life on the frontier and ruthless financial forces that A.P. will never understand. While familiar, the East is a constant reminder of his family's slow, but inexorable, foundering.

With the California Gold Rush as a backdrop, Virga traverses the precariousness of a nineteenth-century transcontinental love story, with the illusory notion of success and how it measures us all.

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