Brittany Maylyn DuBois
Brittany Maylyn DuBois
Piecing It All Together
Streets of Melted Gold: An Arguably Fictional Memoir
Step into the shoes of a young immigrant girl.
Ronnelle Khan is no alien to moving day, yet life seems to crumble as her family immigrates to the United States of America, where people talk funny, look funny, and act funny. She never knows why things happen, just that they do. She wonders what the “papers” are, lives in a stranger’s basement, starts a journal of guidelines on how to speak like a proper American, and befriends a woman with hair as wild as her life. Feeling her first bite of winter, Ronnelle never imagined the new world could be so lonely.
"Streets of Melted Gold is a story, 'much bigger than the country of origin,' as the author says in her opening note. And the protagonist, Ronnelle, may as well be you or me. It truly is a story for our time, and one that should touch our hearts and inspire us to see ourselves in the stranger.
When Ronnelle unintentionally starts a housefire, she initiates a series of events that set her family down the path of immigration to the United States. We follow our ten year old protagonist as she and her family adjust to life in America – where people speak English, but differently than she’s used to. Where they make jokes, but differently. And where they view her – differently. This is the quintessential story of first-generation immigrants, and it’s as old as our country is.
Author Brittany Maylyn Du Bois paints a vivid picture of the many ways that 'everywhere is an island,' and how anywhere can be home when we connect with the people around us and form community. This is a hopeful story. It is also a convicting story about the unfortunate ways we still misjudge, marginalize, and mistreat each other, even in this age of global communication, travel, and migration. It’s a reminder to look for ways to make our little square of the planet more welcoming to our fellow humans."
- Judge, 27th Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards
