I did not end up reading this novel. The rating is not a reflection of the story itself, but rather an indication that other books/stories dominated my interest and reading time. Which I think is an important factor when selecting your next read.

I received a free copy from NetGalley. I really enjoyed learning about water rights and an internment camp during WWII.

Date made up. I fell behind on reviews.

This book took me a long time to read but perhaps this is a positive, since it's surely meant to be savored (yes, this is a pun: the descriptions of food and the intertwining of love and sustenance that weave through the novel are just amazing). This book took me to a less-traveled place in American history at the intersection of water rights, Japanese internment camps, and the remnants of the Gilded Age....this is a rich, multi-layered, epic, funny and poignant read. Highly, highly recommend.

"Properties of Thirst" by Marianne Wiggins is the kind of good old fashioned historical family saga that brought me back to some of my favorite books of the 80s and 90s, but Wiggins brings a social and environmental sensibility to her work that makes this novel feel fresh and modern. As the book opens, Rockwell "Rocky" Rhodes, scion of an East Coast railroad family, presides over Three Chairs Ranch (so named in honor of his hero Henry David Thoreau), in Lone Pine, California with his formidable unmarried twin sister, Cas, and his daughter, Sunny, whose own twin, Stryker, disappeared three years earlier. When they receive news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Cas and Sunny reveal that Stryker had actually joined the Navy and the family is plunged into uncertainty over his fate. Meanwhile, Schiff, a Jewish lawyer from Chicago, is sent to Lone Pine by the Department of the Interior to establish a new Exclusion Zone for Japanese Americans at what will become the Manzanar Detention Camp, After an inauspicious introduction, he establishes a relationship with the Rhodes family and becomes embroiled in Rocky's decades-long fight with the Los Angeles Water Corporation and romantically attracted to Sunny.

I'm tempted to scratch everything I've just written because no plot summary can do justice to this book (and it's really too richly layered to summarize anyway). There's just so much here to love. Schiff's sidekick, quartermaster Jay Svevo, is a pitch perfect comic character and the double act between him and Schiff alone makes me NEED this book to be adapted for the screen. Speaking of which, there's a whole subplot about a Hollywood film crew in town to make a Hannibal film and a caper involving Stryker and their elephant which Rocky forever after will only refer to as "the Incident." Rocky's dogs are all named after literary characters (Heathcliff and Jane Eyre and Daisy Buchanan and Lily Bart). Sunny's mother Lou, a French doctor who died from polio when the twins were three, was an accomplished chef, and a chunk of the book is devoted to Sunny's attempts to translate and decode the cookbooks that represent their only remaining connection and to lavish descriptions of the French meals she ultimately teacher herself to make. Three Chairs Ranch is so vividly presented that it feels like a character itself., and Cas, a martini drinking world renowned harpist, is one of my favorite female characters in recent memory--her grand tour of Europe with Sunny is worthy of its own book. And I haven't even mentioned the depictions of Manzanar and the California Water Wars, historical atrocities which form the backdrop of the novel and which Wiggins' passionate writing brings vividly to life--her anger all these years later is palpable. "Properties of Thirst" is her towering achievement and not to be missed.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review. Highly recommended.

As publisher, I requested this book as background reading for a review feature on BookBrowse. Our reviewer rated it 5-stars -- and so do I. Quite brilliant.

Review:
https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/reviews/index.cfm/ref/j9288960/properties-of-thirst#reviews
Beyond the Book:
https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/btb/index.cfm/ref/j9288960/properties-of-thirst#btb

Despite this book taking a while to get through, I was completely engrossed by the characters and the plot. The book is definitely a slow-paced read but I think this is attributed to the amount of detail that goes into the characters, their backstories, and the setting.

This novel isn't necessarily about the Japanese interment camps but more about the Rhodes family. I had wished there was more on the camps and the true reality of life there. It was more woven into the main plot. With that being said, the Rhodeses show the reader the importance of family and love, especially in times of trouble and grief.

With hints of humor, this story spans generations through artistic metaphors and descriptive writing that makes the reader think deeply.

The cast of characters grips throughout this story. It is exhilaratingly rich in period details.
Many thanks to Simon& Schuster and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

A fascinating read and deep dive into history. The family itself and the whole French cooking theme alone are enough, but that time period and the different issues really lend this book to reading group material.

This book has a lot going on, yet it is so well developed, it kept me on the edge of my seat.. I found myself wanting to know more of the backstory on each of them.

The story takes us through the development of a Japanese internment camp in California immediately after the strike on Pearl Harbor. It involves the heartache of seeing US citizens, from lawyers, college professors, orange grove owners to restaurant owners, and hairdressers all trying to live in huts with their families and still maintain their integrity. It involves a few different love stories, both young and old, as well as the love of cooking, which our main protagonist, Sunny, inherited from her mother. We also see this through the eyes of Rocky and his daughter Sunny. They are on the inside looking out. They wonder if the man who is helping to build the camp knows what he is doing. Will he come to the knowledge and quit before the damage is already done?

Overall, this was a great read. It deserves a place on everyone's bookshelves.

I was swept away by this book. The characters were compelling and I loved the plot. The process involved in the
creation of a Japanese internment camp, with the challenges, struggles, and time constraints, was a remarkably written historical event described in such a unique way. The writing style was a bit challenging and the book was lengthy, but I appreciated the fact that the author told you a story without expressly 'telling you the story.' Rather, she set forth intricate details and characters' thoughts so that the reader could vividly imagine the scenes and intimately get to know the characters in his/her own way.

Beautifully written book about a difficult period in American history. Ironically, it also brings up current issues about water rights and the availability of water. This is a well scripted story which kept my interest throughout. I will say that I think the ending seemed to be a bit unsatisfactory.

Thank you Net Galley for the ebook copy to review. Due to lack of time to read the book, I purchased the audio version. Narration really good.
I am rating this book 4 stars as the average of the majority of the book being 5 stars and a small part being 2 stars. There was a lot of needless rambling, inner dialogue and French words. They were not necessary in conveying love and connection between characters.
I don’t think it’s a spoiler by saying the overused phrase of “you can’t save what you don’t love” had absolutely no meaning to me.

Wow, just wow!  Not one but several strong characters in this book that are well developed.  I found myself wanting to know more of the backstory on each of them.

This well-written novel takes us through the development of a Japanese internment camp in California immediately after the strike on Pearl Harbor. It involves the heartache of seeing US citizens, from lawyers, college professors, orange grove owners to restaurant owners and hairdressers all trying to live in huts with their families and still maintain their integrity.  It involves a few different love stories, both young and old, as well as the love of cooking, which our main protagonist, Sunny, inherited from her mother.  

This novel is an artistic piece that deserves a spot on the top shelf of my bookcase along with other classics.  Truly a joy to read.

My thanks to #NetGalley and Simon & Shuster for the arc of this classic.  This opinion is my own.

PROPERTIES OF THIRST
BY: MARIANNE WIGGINS

This was a huge epic and multi-layered historical fiction novel so beautifully rendered by an utterly proficient wordsmith that Marianne Wiggins does so well. I had discovered her work when the equally beautiful and to me tragic historical fiction that has garnered her with being a finalist for The National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist fifteen years ago. That book which I have also loved as much as "Properties of Thirst," was aptly titled "Evidence of Things Unseen". Both are unforgettable to me in the poetic language and the huge scope of themes that she tackles. It took me a little bit to get into both in that they both meander and start out confusing. Once I got past the beginning of this I became deeply invested in both the plot and I really cared about the characters. It is very difficult to review this because other reviewers have captured the same things that I am thinking. That's why I almost always write my review first and then go read what others have posted. I will keep it simple and just say that I really loved it and it is one of the best books that I have read this year. That being said, I don't know if it is for everybody. At 544 pages long it isn't written in a linear style because it is very descriptive and even though its main plot takes place during World War II, and it is about the awful treatment of the Japanese Americans being placed in internment camps after Pearl Harbor was bombed and most of our Navy was destroyed; the author goes back and forth in time such as when it develops Stryker and Sunny's Aunt Cas's character and their travels to Europe. It fleshes out both sets of twin's formative years. Actually, there are three sets of twins, when Stryker's children are mentioned they are the third set of twins in the Rhodes family.. He left to join the military and he was stationed at Pearl Harbor and then after it was bombed which takes place in the beginning. I got to know him by the author's stream of consciousness style of writing that reminded me of Virginia Woolf.

The novel has eleven sections with different themes that are explored that reflects the title and have to do with the properties of thirst, What I found interesting was how traumas are often passed down through generation after generation, until somebody becomes enlightened and breaks the cycle.

Rocky Rhodes has been battling with the Water Authorities who have diverted water from his ranch in Owens Valley, California in the desert to Los Angeles and Southern Californian cities. Schiff who is from the Department of the Interior has come to this area and it is him who is in charge of setting up and running the Interment camps for the Japanese Americans. Through him we are reminded when he realizes how much these camps have stripped this population of their freedom by the many rules and overcrowding conditions. I liked how he has compassion for the 10,000 internees by mentioning that if the President did that to other ethnic populations such as the Germans and Italians most of the cities would be decimated.

I thought that considering Marianne Wiggins suffered from a massive stroke in 2016, that this sweeping historical novel is a remarkable achievement. I have great admiration for both her and her daughter who rallied to not only recover, but to manage to create such a passionate and intimate multi-themed and epic work such as, "Properties of Thirst," which I am grateful to have been granted an early ARC. I wish this author much success and my best wishes.

Publication Date: August 2, 2022. Available Now!

Thank you to Net Galley, Marianne Wiggins and Simon & Schuster for generously providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#PropertiesofThirst #MarianneWiggins #Simon&Schuster #NetGalley

Powerful, emotional, and enthralling novel that contains diverse list of characters. Even though the story takes place in the 1940’s, the theme is relevant in current times.

Properties of Thirst unfolds like a dependable linen shirt. While it took me a few chapters to get into it, I'm glad I finished. I appreciated most of the character resolutions and liked the themes of family, land ownership and history.
Father Rocky is determined to protect his land. He wants to give it as a legacy to his twins Sunny and Stryker. Meanwhile, Rocky's sister Cas gives up her life to care for the children after their healer mother dies from polio. Each character undergoes a transformation while staying true to who they are.
One thing I didn't like is the wonky punctuation at the beginning that resembles a blog rather than a novel. That strategy disrupted my reading flow.
And there's plenty of profanity and some sexual content. The author also explains that the outdated cultural references were common for the time period, which is why she includes them.

In this novel, Marianne Wiggins expertly explores a dark period in American history through the lenses of interesting, fully realized characters and a powerful landscape. Throughout, her unifying metaphor is water and thirst. She uses it to examine the complexities of love and connection between people and to the land. “You can’t save what you don’t love” is her main message.

The Rhodes family, curiously consisting of three generations of twins, lives on a ranch in California’s picturesque Owens Valley in the 1940’s. They display abundant helpings of familial love and caring characterized by food, traditions, anecdotes, idealism and individualism. These are tempered by loss, sacrifice and grieving mainly caused by the war and disease. To provide texture to her sweeping narrative, Wiggins includes actual historical facts surrounding the U.S.’s xenophobic racist governmental policy of Japanese internment and L.A.’s exploitation of the valley for its scarce natural resource—water.

Rocky Rhodes is the patriarch of the family. Ironically, he inherited his wealth from a father who became rich by plundering the environment for natural resources. Now Rocky finds himself as an impassioned advocate for preserving the water that L.A. is sucking away from his homeland. Also, he is grieving the untimely death of his wife, Lou, from polio. As a caring physician, Lou apparently acquired the virus while treating Native-Americans in the valley.

Rocky is left to raise his twin children, Sunny and Stryker. Sunny copes with the loss of her mother by deciphering her notes on French cooking (all in French), while her brother reacts to his own grief by recklessly acting out. He joins the Navy before Pearl Harbor and apparently dies there during the attack only after marrying a Japanese American woman and fathering twin sons. Unfortunately, Wiggins never satisfactorily provides closure or sufficient detail for this sad plot element. This shortcoming can be forgiven, however, since Wiggins suffered a devastating stroke before finishing the novel and it was only completed through the diligence of her daughter.

Aside from the immediate family, two other characters play prominent roles in the plot. One is Rocky’s ungainly twin sister, Cas, who comes to help with raising his twins following Lou’s passing. She is an endearing personage, who is both physically and figuratively larger than life. The other is Schiff, an idealistic young lawyer sent by the Interior Department to establish the Manzanar Internment Camp for Japanese American nationals from the West Coast exclusion zone. As the child of holocaust survivors, the injustice of citizenship by ethnicity is not lost on Schiff. His infatuation with Sunny makes for a delightful boy-meets-loses-regains-girl love story that Wiggins exploits to the fullest.

PROPERTIES OF THIRST is a wonderful reading experience filled with intimate details and universal themes. In creating this novel, Wiggins has clearly done her homework. While seamlessly following the adventures of the Rhodes family, Wiggins manages to delve into the intricacies of French cooking, the difficulties and injustices of warehousing certain Americans out of fear. And especially, along the way, she evokes the expansive setting in the American high desert along with its haciendas, unique vegetation, and sweeping landscapes that were repeatedly used as Hollywood movie sets.

“Properties of Thirst” by Marianne Wiggins, Simon & Schuster, 544 pages, Aug. 2, 2022.

Rockwell “Rocky” Rhodes and his wife, Lou, raised their twins, Sunny and Stryker, on a California ranch, Las Tres Sillas. He has been mourning Lou since her death from polio years earlier.

His sister Cas lives with him. She came to help with the twins after Lou’s death and stayed on. The twins are now grown. It is the early 1940s.

Rocky has been fighting the LA Water Corporation for years. The authority bought up water rights to land surrounding his ranch, draining his aquifer.

Stryker is estranged from his father and joins the Navy. He is sent to Pearl Harbor not long before the attack. Sunny is interested in cooking. Then the government decides to build a Japanese-American internment camp next to the ranch.

Schiff, an employee of the Department of the Interior, arrives. In time, Schiff begins to understand the horror of what he's been asked to do. He also becomes interested in Sunny.

While it is an interesting historical novel, it is disjointed and too long. The afterword reveals that Marianne Wiggins had a serious stroke while writing the novel, but was able to complete it after a lengthy recovery. Marianne Wiggins is also the author of “Evidence of Things Unseen,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

"Properties of Thirst" by Marianne Wiggins is as close to perfection as a book can be. It's an absolute masterpiece. It is gorgeously written and, though it deals with some very heavy subjects such as the Japanese internment camps, water rights in the American West, and crushing heartbreak, this book is a joy to read because the characters are so fully developed and real. This book hit every mark for me. it is richly detailed and beautifully crafted, with lyrical prose and vivid imagery. Though it is a lengthy read, I was positively enthralled through the entire book and I didn't want it to end. "Properties of Thirst" is definitely one of the best boons of 2022.

I am so grateful to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the privilege of reading an advanced digital copy of this magnificent novel.

Wow. Just.. wow. I have so much to say about this book and I don’t even know where to begin.

This book reads like a poem. A fluid, constant stream of consciousness in the third person shifting from POV to POV. You get to intimately know each character from inside their own mind and how they view and love the others in the story.

It tells the story of the Rhodes family, a long line of twins with a significant inheritance from their father and a mission to find their own way in the world, outside of their father’s shadow.

Rockwell Rhodes (Rocky) the Patriarch of the family, drops out of Harvard and moves to the High Sierras in the early 1900’s to be as far away from his father and his money as he can to live off the land and be a real cowboy. He falls in love with a French doctor (Louisiana “Lou”) and they make a life and medical practice living off the land in the high, snow capped mountains of the Sierras and Mount Whitney. A simple life with Mexican And Native American laborers living on their ranch together as family and friends, they seem to have the life they’ve always dreamed of. They have two beautiful twins (Sunny and Stryker) and life is good. When the children are three, Lou succumbs to Polio and Rocky is left to parent the children alone in the isolated high desert. His twin sister, Caswell (Cas) immediately abandons her life and dreams as a professional touring harpist in Scandinavia and turns her ball gowns in for galoshes and crewneck sweaters to raise the children alongside her brother and best friend.

Stryker is the younger twin, bold and brazen, flirtatious and devious. He never seems to forgive his father for his other’s death, and his relationship with his father has always been strained and tense. Sunny is the practical, pensive, motherly twin.. always keeping things in order and often sacrificing her comfort and experiences in life to protect her twin brother. When Stryker decides to leave the family and join the Navy, he only tells his sister Sunny. On December 7, 1941, the Naval Base Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii is bombed by the Japanese, and Sunny confesses to her family that that is where Stryker had been stationed with his new Japanese wife Suzy and their two twin boys, Ralph and Waldo Rhodes. They are informed that Stryker was aboard the Arizona and has perished in the attack, and the whereabouts of his new wife and children are unknown.

While the family is searching for answers, and the United States is bloodthirsty with a violent and racist rage against anyone of Japanese decent, a young Jewish lawyer from Chicago named Schiff comes to town with an unusual job for the Department of the Interior. While eating dinner at the best place in town, Lou’s, he meets Sunny and is immediately taken with her. When he finds out that she is the lead chef and is living her dream of creating savory, meaningful dishes from all over the world in her own restaurant, he admits to her that he is in charge of opening and operating one of the largest Japanese internment camps on the border of her family land.

This story has so many layers of life, love, loss, grace, grudges, and hope… all with water at the center. You get to know each character so intimately that their development though the pages is both satisfying and sad, as their death and loss become yours. The love and selflessness of the Rhodes family is a thing of beauty and the love and devotion of Schiff to Sunny and Rocky to Lou sets the bar so high, like only a novel can. The story was so rich with French, Spanish, Japanese, Hebrew/Yiddish and Native American phrases, slang and shorthand that I felt immersed in so many cultures the entire time. The details of each and every food made my mouth water, and I felt like I could smell and taste the things Sunny described. The ending was so devastatingly beautiful and fitting that I can’t even be upset.

This book was phenomenal, exquisite, I couldn’t put it down. I can’t recommend it enough.