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.
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Community Reviews
thenextgoodbook.com
What’s it about?
Marianne Wiggins has been a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and The National Book Award. Her prowess as a writer is on full display in this sprawling novel set in the California desert during World War II. Rocky Rhodes lives on his California ranch with his twin children, Stryker and Sunny, where he equally mourns the loss of his wife Lou and fights against the L.A. water company (that has siphoned off most of the water that once kept the valley livable). Once the bombs land at Pearl Harbor a great fear of Japanese Americans arises on the West Coast. Soon Rocky must adjust to Manzanar- a Japanese internment camp that is being built across the road. “Schiff estimated that there would be “ten thousand” but the mind resists that number: the mind transforms that number to a cipher with no face. Yet here they were, busloads of them, silent and confused, transported only with the things they carried in their arms and pasteboard luggage; their memories. “
What did it make me think about?
Our thirst for connection-
“Who starts out as a child- starts out in life- thinking Death will end up to be our best teacher? Right up there with Love, Rocky had learned.”
Should I read it?
Oh my! This is a book to be savored. It was a reading experience for me. Sometimes uneven- but always beautiful. “You can’t save what you don’t love, but sometimes –most times- you can’t save what you love, regardless.” The cadences Marianne Wiggins wrote into this book were so intriguing. Some pages just flew by, and some passages and pages slowed you down to a crawl. Somehow this just adds to the reading experience. So many beautiful passages. Then- when you read in the afterward the story of the book… Well it is just an incredible feat of determination that we all are able to enjoy this book all the way to the end. One of my absolute favorites this year is “Properties of Thirst”. This book is big, complicated, lyrical, demanding, and I cannot wait to discuss it with another reader.
Quote-
“Where do I begin?- not to tell a story, that’s the easy part, a story starts with some first words, or with a datable event-
I was born.
We went to war.
She died.
-but where do I- and you- or anyone- begin? The past is much more mesmerizing than the future: the future will reveal itself, regardless, but the past is made to disappear….
What’s it about?
Marianne Wiggins has been a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and The National Book Award. Her prowess as a writer is on full display in this sprawling novel set in the California desert during World War II. Rocky Rhodes lives on his California ranch with his twin children, Stryker and Sunny, where he equally mourns the loss of his wife Lou and fights against the L.A. water company (that has siphoned off most of the water that once kept the valley livable). Once the bombs land at Pearl Harbor a great fear of Japanese Americans arises on the West Coast. Soon Rocky must adjust to Manzanar- a Japanese internment camp that is being built across the road. “Schiff estimated that there would be “ten thousand” but the mind resists that number: the mind transforms that number to a cipher with no face. Yet here they were, busloads of them, silent and confused, transported only with the things they carried in their arms and pasteboard luggage; their memories. “
What did it make me think about?
Our thirst for connection-
“Who starts out as a child- starts out in life- thinking Death will end up to be our best teacher? Right up there with Love, Rocky had learned.”
Should I read it?
Oh my! This is a book to be savored. It was a reading experience for me. Sometimes uneven- but always beautiful. “You can’t save what you don’t love, but sometimes –most times- you can’t save what you love, regardless.” The cadences Marianne Wiggins wrote into this book were so intriguing. Some pages just flew by, and some passages and pages slowed you down to a crawl. Somehow this just adds to the reading experience. So many beautiful passages. Then- when you read in the afterward the story of the book… Well it is just an incredible feat of determination that we all are able to enjoy this book all the way to the end. One of my absolute favorites this year is “Properties of Thirst”. This book is big, complicated, lyrical, demanding, and I cannot wait to discuss it with another reader.
Quote-
“Where do I begin?- not to tell a story, that’s the easy part, a story starts with some first words, or with a datable event-
I was born.
We went to war.
She died.
-but where do I- and you- or anyone- begin? The past is much more mesmerizing than the future: the future will reveal itself, regardless, but the past is made to disappear….
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