Properties of Thirst Summary
Marianne Wiggins

Properties of Thirst Overview

Properties of Thirst is a novel of literary fiction written in the third person primarily set in the Owens Valley in California during World War II. It follows the lives of the Rhodes family and details their interactions with the workers and Japanese internees detained at the Japanese internment camp at Manzanar. The book centers around numerous themes including what is within a person’s ability to save, the promise of and insufficiency of the written word for building and maintaining connections, the injustice of the internment camps, the impact of history on individual lives, and the maintaining and breaking of family ties throughout the generations.