Mad Professor

Dobbs is an out-of-work hard-luck American loser living in Mexico in the 1930s, in the waning years of the Mexican oil boom. Work in the oil fields is hard to come by, and he makes ends meet by bumming pesos off well-heeled Americans. One night, he and another drifter listen to an old man named Howard spin a tale about a fabulous gold mine in the Sierra Madre mountains. The next day, the trio make up their mind to prospect for gold in the lawless Mexican countryside.

It's a lot harder getting the gold than the two younger men expect. You have to grind up tons of rocks into sand, and haul water a long distance to wash the sand, just to yield a few ounces of gold. Days are scorching, nights are freezing, the diet is monotonous, the work is exhausting, and there's the constant fear of banditos and corrupt soldiers waiting to take their gold and shoot them on the spot. But bit-by-bit, the three men accumulate a sizable pile of gold dust, and that's when the greed of gold-fever sets in, with nasty consequences.

The author B. Traven, reminds me a bit of Hemingway and Steinbeck, but I find his work even more engaging and empathetic. Not much is know about Traven. He appears to have been as desirous of his privacy as Pynchon. The rumor is that he was a German anarchist who fled to Mexico in the early 1930s. No one knows for sure. $10.20 on Amazon