4 minute read
PROPERTIES OF THIRST by Marianne Wiggins
Mama Sugar welcomes her with open arms. In Mama Sugar’s boardinghouse, Sara settles in; her son, Lebanon, is born; and the days begin to flow by as she helps take care of Mr. Vanellys, Mama Sugar’s husband; Elvin and Buster, two long-term boarders; William, Mama Sugar’s grandson; and all the other boarders who come and go on their way through Memphis. Soon Sara’s circle expands: There is Mr. Coulter, one of Will’s teachers, forever giving Will extra assignments to expand his mind; Cora and Lawrence Morgan, a doctor and his wife from Mama Sugar’s church; and Ms. Mavis, a local bakery owner. But this is not a fairy tale, and happy endings are in short supply: Sara’s circle also includes Amos, Will’s here-now-and-gone-again father, a drinker and gambler; and Lucky, who is willing to do anything to get the money that Amos owes him. The story follows Sara and the others over the course of a few years, as Lebanon grows, good times follow bad times, and joy and tragedy come fast and furious. Author West has written a book that seems made to be filmed: Weighty conversations about living with segregation and trying to survive despite all the difficulties drive the story.
A raw look at life for a Black woman in the segregated South.
PROPERTIES OF THIRST
Wiggins, Marianne Simon & Schuster (544 pp.) $28.00 | Aug. 2, 2022 978-1-4165-7126-1
A sweeping, cinematic story of love and family set against the dramatic backdrop of World War II and the American West. “You can’t save what you don’t love.” That’s the first sentence of Wiggins’ new novel and a leitmotif throughout the book—a love story, in the classic sense, as well as a love letter to an American West celebrated by Hollywood even as it was sucked dry by the city of Los Angeles. It’s also a lesson in how Wiggins’ languid, linguistically lush and lyrical novel, set in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, found its way to completion. As the author’s daughter, photographer Lara Porzak, relays in an afterword, Wiggins was just a few chapters shy of completing the book when, in 2016, she suffered a massive stroke that affected her sequencing logic and short-term memory. Porzak worked from Wiggins’ notes and with a collaborator to help her mother complete the novel, saving it as a true labor of love. Given that painstaking process and the breathtaking beauty of the bulk of this novel, it would be ungrateful to gripe that the end doesn’t quite live up to the standard set by the previous chapters. To be sure, Wiggins set an extremely high bar. The book follows the experiences of several memorable characters, including Rockwell “Rocky” Rhodes, the scion of a wealthy East Coast railroad magnate, who has reinvented himself as a hardworking ranch man and impassioned preservationist; a Chicago-raised Jewish attorney named Schiff, who has been sent by the Department of the Interior to set up an internment camp for Japanese Americans in a desiccated former apple orchard adjacent to Rocky’s turf in Lone Pine, California; and Sunny, Rocky’s spirited daughter, a fiercely talented, mostly self-taught chef with whom Schiff falls in love. Wiggins’ interwoven plotlines—propelled here by romantic and there by familial love—and colorful characters are entrancing and as cinematic as the real-life Westerns that were filmed in the valley in which the book is primarily set. But what makes the novel soar is the way Wiggins can evoke landscapes both interior and exterior, especially the expansive valley that has come to exemplify America’s best qualities—and its worst.
This majestic novel will satisfy those thirsting for an epic saga of love, family, and the complexities of the American way.
mystery
BOUND BY MURDER
Black, Laura Gail Crooked Lane (288 pp.) $26.99 | Sept. 6, 2022 978-1-63910-096-5
A woman previously suspected of murder is implored by her ex to get him out of jail when he’s accused of a similar crime. Though she hasn’t always been lucky in love herself, Jenna Quinn loves love. She’s charmed when Mason, her young employee at the antique bookshop Twice Upon a Time, falls head over heels for the literal girl next door. The added attention of boyfriend Det. Keith Logan makes Jenna wholly smitten with the spring season. So smitten, she’s willing to try to play nice when her former fiance, Blake Emerson, shows up to her workplace with a woman who introduces herself as Missy Plott, the next Mrs. Emerson. Even though it stings to see someone else wearing the engagement ring she’d picked out, Jenna considers herself lucky that she and Blake are history. After all, instead of supporting her when she was wrongly accused of murder, Blake all but vanished, leaving her to rely on the support of her new friends in Hokes Folly, North Carolina. Missy sees herself as winning, and Jenna’s not about to convince her otherwise, but Blake demonstrates he’s no prize when he tries to win Jenna back while Missy’s out of earshot (eww!). Jenna tries to keep her head down and stay out of it until Blake’s accused of murder in the wake of a shocking discovery. Remembering Jenna’s success in clearing her own name, Blake and his mother, Gwendolyn, implore her to help. Will this be a chance for Blake and Jenna to clear the air, or will investigating imperil the true love between Jenna and Keith?
