In Pasadena Literary Tradition, Marianne Wiggins Will Illuminate ‘Properties of Thirst

To celebrate the 22nd year of Pasadena’s One City, One Story community reading project, the public is invited to a conversation with Marianne Wiggins, author of this year’s selection Properties of Thirst, Saturday, March 23, at 2 p.m. at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, 585 E. Colorado Blvd. Wiggins will discuss her experiences writing this novel. A question-and-answer session will immediately follow. A Slide Rule Trombone Welcome Concert will be held from 1:15 to 1:45 p.m. prior to the conversation with the author. The event is free and open to the public.

Properties of Thirst is a 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.

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, and where Rocky has mourned Lou in the years since her death.

As twins Sunny and Stryker reach 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.

And 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.

Marianne Wiggins is the author of eight novels, including John Dollar and Evidence of Things Unseen, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award. She has won a Whiting Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and the Heidinger Kafka Prize and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She lives in Venice, Calif.

Pasadena Public Library’s annual One City, One Story program is designed to broaden and deepen an appreciation of reading in Pasadena by engaging the community in dialog around a single literary work. 

One City, One Story is sponsored by The Friends of the Pasadena Public Library and Pasadena Literary Alliance – Pasadena Festival of Women Authors. 

For more information on this year’s One City, One Story activities, call (626) 744-7076 or visit http://cityofpasadena.libguides.com/onecityonestory.