This has all the makings of ‘the great American novel’; it is a love story as well as being a love letter to an American West as celebrated by Hollywood, even as the city of Los Angeles is growing, changing it forever.

The story begins with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Here we meet Rockwell ‘Rocky’ Rhodes, a widower, rancher and passionate water preservationist. He is worried about his son who is in the navy and about the nearby city which is using all their water.

He is visited by a Chicago-based attorney named Schiff, who has been charged by the Department of the Interior to set up an internment camp for Japanese Americans on land next to Rocky’s property; is it for their protection, or is it to protect others from them (at that time one-third of Hawaii’s population was of Japanese descent)? And then there is Sunny, Rocky’s daughter, a talented chef with whom Schiff falls in love. Themes of romantic and familial love are central to the story.

This is an interesting time in American history, and a different take on the challenges of its involvement in World War II, yet, much as I wanted to love this, I found the writing a little uneven, and at times erratic. The characters are well drawn, and the love stories sincere, however, I felt there was considerable padding between moments of real literary beauty. Despite that, it is an interesting insight into the plight of water-poor ranchers and Japanese Americans, and overall, well done.

Reviewed by Lesley West

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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, the Heidinger Kafka Prize, and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She lives in Venice, California.