Genre Fiction
![Marianne Wiggins - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B000APC6RU.jpg)
Properties of Thirst
A National Bestseller
A New Yorker Best Book of 2022
Fifteen years after the publication of Evidence of Things Unseen, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist Marianne Wiggins returns with a "big, bold book" (USA TODAY) destined to be an American classic: a sweeping masterwork set during World War II about the meaning of family and the limitations of the American Dream.
Rockwell "Rocky" Rhodes has spent years fiercely protecting his California ranch from the LA Water Corporation. It is here where he and his beloved wife Lou raised their twins, Sunny and Stryker, and it is here where Rocky has mourned Lou in the years since her death.
As Sunny and Stryker reach the cusp of adulthood, the country teeters on the brink of war. Stryker decides to join the fight, deploying to Pearl Harbor not long before the bombs strike. Soon, Rocky and his family find themselves facing yet another incomprehensible tragedy.
Rocky is determined to protect his remaining family and the land where they've loved and lost so much. But when the government decides to build a Japanese American internment camp next to the ranch, Rocky realizes that the land faces even bigger threats than the LA watermen he's battled for years. Complicating matters is the fact that the idealistic Department of the Interior man assigned to build the camp, who only begins to understand the horror of his task after it may be too late, becomes infatuated with Sunny and entangled with the Rhodes family.
Properties of Thirst is a "magnificent" (Colum McCann) novel that is both universal and intimate. It is the story of a changing American landscape and an examination of one of the darkest periods in this country's past, told through the stories of the individual loves and losses that weave together to form the fabric of our shared history. Ultimately, it is an unflinching distillation of our nation's essence-and a celebration of the bonds of love and family that persist against all odds.
A New Yorker Best Book of 2022
Fifteen years after the publication of Evidence of Things Unseen, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist Marianne Wiggins returns with a "big, bold book" (USA TODAY) destined to be an American classic: a sweeping masterwork set during World War II about the meaning of family and the limitations of the American Dream.
Rockwell "Rocky" Rhodes has spent years fiercely protecting his California ranch from the LA Water Corporation. It is here where he and his beloved wife Lou raised their twins, Sunny and Stryker, and it is here where Rocky has mourned Lou in the years since her death.
As Sunny and Stryker reach the cusp of adulthood, the country teeters on the brink of war. Stryker decides to join the fight, deploying to Pearl Harbor not long before the bombs strike. Soon, Rocky and his family find themselves facing yet another incomprehensible tragedy.
Rocky is determined to protect his remaining family and the land where they've loved and lost so much. But when the government decides to build a Japanese American internment camp next to the ranch, Rocky realizes that the land faces even bigger threats than the LA watermen he's battled for years. Complicating matters is the fact that the idealistic Department of the Interior man assigned to build the camp, who only begins to understand the horror of his task after it may be too late, becomes infatuated with Sunny and entangled with the Rhodes family.
Properties of Thirst is a "magnificent" (Colum McCann) novel that is both universal and intimate. It is the story of a changing American landscape and an examination of one of the darkest periods in this country's past, told through the stories of the individual loves and losses that weave together to form the fabric of our shared history. Ultimately, it is an unflinching distillation of our nation's essence-and a celebration of the bonds of love and family that persist against all odds.
Editorial Reviews
*Listed as one of The New Yorker's Best Books of 2022*
"Legitimately great…. This is a big, bold book, generous of spirit and packed with prose that gleefully breaks the rules…. It speaks to the heart as well as the head, and conjures characters to whom you won't want to say goodbye."-USA Today
"This is a love story. Or rather, several love stories…. ‘You can't save what you don't love,' reads the declarative sentence that opens the novel. It becomes the theme that ties together the disparate characters as they attempt to save the water, save the land, save their families and ultimately save themselves. And it describes the novel that mother and daughter have saved together."-Los Angeles Times
"Wiggins's wordplay is stellar… the dialogue is full of grit, and Wiggins manages to capture a big swath of mid-century America by placing a blue-blooded family into a desert inland complete with adobe haciendas, desert blooms, and Hollywood movie sets…Wiggins's masterpiece is one for the ages."-The Millions
"A sweeping, cinematic story of love and family set against the dramatic backdrop of World War II and the American West…. What makes the novel soar is the way Wiggins can evoke landscapes both interior and exterior, especially the expansive valley that has come to exemplify America's best qualities-and its worst. This majestic novel will satisfy those thirsting for an epic saga of love, family, and the complexities of the American way."-Kirkus *Starred Review*
"Wiggins manages to capture a big swath of mid-century America by placing a blue-blooded family into a desert inland complete with adobe haciendas, desert blooms, and Hollywood movie sets, while throughout, the Rhodes hold out hope for Stryker's survival. Wiggins's masterpiece is one for the ages."–Publishers Weekly, *Starred Review*
"[a] grand novel of principled and creative individuals caught in the vise of history… Loss, desire, moral dilemmas, reflection, and zesty dialogue with the do-good energy of Frank Capra films generate a WWII home front tale of profound and far-ranging inquiry and imagination, scintillating humor, intrepid romance, and conscience."-Booklist *Starred Review*
"Masterful…. Readers won't be able to look away. Wiggins' characters are raw and honest… [her] writing, which can be fragmented or polished depending on the page, opens up microscopic universes and sprawling landscapes alike. It's a jo...
"Legitimately great…. This is a big, bold book, generous of spirit and packed with prose that gleefully breaks the rules…. It speaks to the heart as well as the head, and conjures characters to whom you won't want to say goodbye."-USA Today
"This is a love story. Or rather, several love stories…. ‘You can't save what you don't love,' reads the declarative sentence that opens the novel. It becomes the theme that ties together the disparate characters as they attempt to save the water, save the land, save their families and ultimately save themselves. And it describes the novel that mother and daughter have saved together."-Los Angeles Times
"Wiggins's wordplay is stellar… the dialogue is full of grit, and Wiggins manages to capture a big swath of mid-century America by placing a blue-blooded family into a desert inland complete with adobe haciendas, desert blooms, and Hollywood movie sets…Wiggins's masterpiece is one for the ages."-The Millions
"A sweeping, cinematic story of love and family set against the dramatic backdrop of World War II and the American West…. What makes the novel soar is the way Wiggins can evoke landscapes both interior and exterior, especially the expansive valley that has come to exemplify America's best qualities-and its worst. This majestic novel will satisfy those thirsting for an epic saga of love, family, and the complexities of the American way."-Kirkus *Starred Review*
"Wiggins manages to capture a big swath of mid-century America by placing a blue-blooded family into a desert inland complete with adobe haciendas, desert blooms, and Hollywood movie sets, while throughout, the Rhodes hold out hope for Stryker's survival. Wiggins's masterpiece is one for the ages."–Publishers Weekly, *Starred Review*
"[a] grand novel of principled and creative individuals caught in the vise of history… Loss, desire, moral dilemmas, reflection, and zesty dialogue with the do-good energy of Frank Capra films generate a WWII home front tale of profound and far-ranging inquiry and imagination, scintillating humor, intrepid romance, and conscience."-Booklist *Starred Review*
"Masterful…. Readers won't be able to look away. Wiggins' characters are raw and honest… [her] writing, which can be fragmented or polished depending on the page, opens up microscopic universes and sprawling landscapes alike. It's a jo...
Readers Top Reviews
Elizabeth DuncanG
I wasn’t sure at first: starts off intense to read, reminding me of James Joyce prose. Quickly picks up and the storytelling is phenomenal. None of the romancing history that’s so common in contemporary historical fiction. Highly recommend.
Lisa B.Elizabeth
Best book I’ve read in a long time. The characters… her words. Her thought process. Sad it’s come to an end….
Trisengland1Lisa
Beautifully written book that explores the water issue facing today’s West Coast. The recent 15% cut in allocation of water has its roots explored in this book. It also discusses th internment of Japanese American citizens. Excellent read.
Pam GershTrisengl
I have now read everything Marianne Wiggins has written after reading "Properties of Thirst." I was absolutely gobsmacked by this novel. I had just come off reading a not-so-great book and when I opened this and started reading it was immediately obvious that this was something very special. Not only is it an amazing history lesson but the characters are so well-written and the story just keeps getting better. I fell in love with the characters and their devotion to each other and the land. In my life, I can only remember a hand full of times when I felt this about a novel. All I can say is that I recommended it to everyone and sent it to a few friends and my MIL. I wish Ms. Wiggins had written more!
The Constant Read
PROPERTIES OF THIRST, August 2, 2022, Simon & Schuster Marianne Wiggins is an award-winning author of eight novels, one of which was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award. Born November 8, 1947, she makes her home in Southern California. After suffering a massive stroke in 2016, the book was completed with the assistance of her daughter, Lara Porzak. Ms. Wiggins’ nonlinear story is set in California, primarily in 1942, at the beginning of World War II, with flashbacks to the formative past. Throughout the novel are characters who, in one way or another, due to their choices or circumstances, are out of place, and so cannot reach their potentials. “Rocky” (Rockwell) Rhodes is a tough-minded rancher. His estate, Three Chairs, is sustained by old family money. Rhodes’ energy and much of his fortune are spent harrying Los Angeles Department of Water—the “water boys”—and its expropriation of Owens Valley water to which, he holds, it has no right, despite the water having been purchased by LADW. The forced relocation of Japanese Americans from their rightful homes to an internment camp being built directly across the road from Three Chairs has further stressed the resource. Rhodes’ wife, Lou, a French-born doctor, died from polio years before the story begins, still her persona permeates it. Rhodes mourns her endlessly. After Lou’s death, Rocky’s twin sister, Caswell, moved to the estate to help care for his children, twins Sunny and Stryker and, remaining there long after the children were grown, is present in the household when the book opens. Stryker joined the Navy and was in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. His family doubts he is alive. Meanwhile, Sunny dedicates herself to learning about French “cookery,” an obsession gleaned from memories of her mother’s kitchen and the trove of cookbooks discovered since her mother’s death. The reader is given a glimpse into Sunny’s memories of an ocean voyage with Aunt Caswell, and her introduction to international cuisine and manners. Sunny establishes a fine restaurant, “Lou’s,” in the awkward little town of Lone Pine, near the internment camp. Schiff is the individual to whose movements and intentions I am most drawn. His arrival on site brings to the text a sort of mirror reflected in a mirror, or the aspect of the untroubled surface of a deep and very troubled pond. A young, civilian lawyer, Schiff’s degree has been diverted to a patently lawless function with his assignment by the United States Department of the Interior to establish and direct Owens Valley Assembly Center (later renamed Manzanar Relocation Center). With no related experience, Schiff undoubtedly jumped in at the deep end. The author makes much of Schiff’s keen sense of language, specifically his use of legalese. Schiff’s observations include frequent references to his...
