And adventure story that may have more dimensions - In the Distance

Began reading Hernan Diaz's new novel, In the Distance, and based on first 50 pp or so it promises to be a fine adventure novel that reverses some of the expected tropes of the genre. The basic premise: Two brothers from an impoverished family in Sweden ca. 1880 head for America (New York, specifically), but get separated en route, and we follow the younger brother, Hakan (pronounced Hawk-en), who boards the wrong vessel in England and finds himself in SF at the height of the Gold Rush. He aligns w/ a prospector family that is woefully unprepared for the venture; they set off heading east, of course, which is all that Hakan really wants - he has the naive idea that he can head east to NY and quickly locate his brother in the city. The family does find some gold, but are over-run by some outlaws and Hakan is held captive in a saloon where he becomes essentially the sex slave for the woman who owns the saloon. He eventually escapes from captivity and continues making his way east. We know that he endures for a long time, presumably never finds his brother, and becomes somewhat of a legend because of his prodigious size and strength - and we know this because in the first chapter he is aboard a boat ice-bound in what seems to be one of the Great Lakes, and he begins to tell his life story to fellow passengers. So, this novel promises lots of adventures and escapes, and it has cinematic potential. Is there anything of more significance, e.g., insight into the immigrant experience, into American colonialism and exceptionalism, into the economics and politics of the Gold Rush, into relations between settlers and natives, between miners and ranchers? So far no evidence of that, but I suspect there will be more dimensions to this novel, which btw was a Pulitzer Prize finalist this year (and those awards are never rigged, are they?).