Properties of Thirst

De: Marianne Wiggins

Narrado por: Stephen Graybill, Gabra Zackman

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.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"The consistent, fluid, and engrossing nature of this majestic novel is rendered even more remarkable by the fact that it was completed after the author suffered a massive stroke in 2016. Set in California during WWII, when Japanese–Americans were being interned by the U.S. Government, this ambitious saga of family, romance, and grief is poignantly narrated by Gabra Zackman and Stephen Greybill."

Wonderful book

Loved this book. Loved the historical content especially since I live in Los Angeles. What rich characters and the writing is exceptional.

Properties is a must read

From the 1st paragraph I found this story thoroughly engaging. I read & listened. I like its shining a light on the Japanese enterment camps though such a sad part of our history. Because I love cooking, the descriptions of that and especially the role food played in the lives of the Japanese came alive for me. At the same time it's heartbreaking and hopeful.

Properties of Thirst

I enjoyed this book and the reading very much. I had a little trouble with the writing style in the beginning but fell in love with the characters pretty quickly.

Captivated

This was my first book by Marianne Wiggins. I will certainly read more. The dialogue, in depth of characters were captivating.

4+* CA & the Sierra Nevada Mountains

I am familiar with the beauty and isolation of this CA splendor. The mountains lift off the ground and the people who live there preserve the magic. I have been to the places described in the storytelling and have had good friends share thier long history of living in the mountains. The author was able to write a first hand or witness account of life before and after Pearl Harbor . The characters, twin relationships, Trauma bonds, family are described with an abundance of empathy . This novel, even if it was a bit wordy, is worth reading. I felt that the author stopped time on The Day of Infamy.

Unbearable male Narrator.

I love this book and the author, but couldn’t stand the male narrator. I had to return. He sounds like a computerized Peter Coyote. Is he actually human?

Grating narration

Who decided to assign this novel to two different readers? It makes no narrative sense, since the male and female voices aren’t assigned to any particular characters, but seem to appear and retreat almost at random. Stephen Graybill’s is by far the more irritating—by turns stilted, over-enunciated, sappy, melodramatic, and droning. Gabra Zackman’s is more engaging, but her attempts at male voices—and even Aunt Cass—are often cringe-worthy. The story that unfolds in the first half of the book is nevertheless captivating, but as it wears on and characters developed in the first half fall off a cliff into narrative oblivion, I found myself longing for it to end. It does, eventually, but only after an excruciatingly repetitive final chapter, followed by a coda from Williamson’s daughter (awkwardly read by Graybill) in which we learn that the last several chapters were written as sort of a group effort as the author recovered from a devastating stroke. That explains a lot, but doesn’t make the conclusion any more fulfilling.

Wish I had read the book…

I started by first reading the book and was so excited that I stopped 160 pages in so that my wife and I could listen to it on Audible. I rarely feel this way and usually am so admiring of the narrators, but these two were among the poorest of any I can remember. Neither could evoke the emotional flavor and conversational style that I left behind when I put down the book. I hate to say that, but must be honest. Sorry folks.

Beautiful writing

The characters were well-written, the plot took unexpected turns, and the story made real the problems arising from CA water rights disputes and WWII internment of American citizens of Japanese descent.

Interesting Story Elements Trail Off and Go Unresolved

This book piqued my Interest in the first half dozen chapters but left the water story unresolved as well as the internment camp story and the consequences of both on the landscape and the main characters just trailed off
Disappointing unless you stayed the course for the love story. Then at least you got something that came full circle