Marianne Wiggins books

Marianne Wiggins is an American literary novelist known for lyrical prose and historically grounded fiction, with books spanning from 1973 to 2022.

Collections

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Bet They’ll Miss Us When We’re Gone 1991 Buy

M.K. Brown Range Life Reading Order

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Life on the Texas Range 1973 Buy
Still: Cowboys at the Start of the Twenty-First Century 2008 Buy

Standalone Novels

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Went South 1980 Buy
Separate Checks 1984 Buy
Herself in Love 1987 Buy
John Dollar 1989 Buy
Eveless Eden 1995 Buy
Almost Heaven 1998 Buy
Evidence of Things Unseen 2003 Buy
The Shadow Catcher 2007 Buy
Properties of Thirst 2022 Buy

Marianne Wiggins is an American novelist whose career spans five decades, from her early photography work on Life on the Texas Range (1973) to her final novel Properties of Thirst (2022). She was married to Salman Rushdie from 1988 to 1993, and during that time she lived in hiding with him following the fatwa issued against him. That experience of displacement and danger left a mark on her writing, which often returns to questions of identity, loss, and survival in extreme circumstances.

Her fiction is known for its dense, poetic style and its interest in American history. Evidence of Things Unseen (2003) follows a Tennessee glassblower through the atomic age and was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The Shadow Catcher (2007) blends fact and fiction around the life of photographer Edward Curtis. Her last novel, Properties of Thirst, set against the backdrop of the California water wars and Japanese American internment during World War II, was published after a long absence caused by a debilitating car accident in 2016.

Beyond her novels, Wiggins also wrote the short story collection Bet They’ll Miss Us When We’re Gone (1991) and contributed text to two photography books about Texas ranching life in the M.K. Brown Range Life series.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many books has Marianne Wiggins written?

Marianne Wiggins has written twelve books across three series.

What was Marianne Wiggins's first book?

Marianne Wiggins’s first book is Life on the Texas Range, published in 1973.

What is Marianne Wiggins best known for?

Wiggins is best known for Evidence of Things Unseen (2003), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. She also gained attention for her novel John Dollar (1989), often compared to Lord of the Flies.

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