‘RIVERBIG,’ BY ARIS JANIGIAN
Terry Hong, Special to The Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
March 23 2009
CA
Riverbig
By Aris Janigian
(Heyday Books; 248 pages; $21.95)
Far too many immigration stories begin with an escape from tragedy –
everything from economic hardship to devastating wars. The Armenian
American experience is tragically rooted in the Armenian genocide of
1915 to 1918, the systematic massacre of an estimated 1 to 2 million
Armenians. A near-century later, the tragedy continues to fester
with the Turkish government’s continued refusal to acknowledge that
genocide occurred.
Among the surviving diaspora, California’s Central Valley proved
to be an immigration destination for many families. Aris Janigian,
a Fresno-born, second-generation Armenian American, introduced readers
to such a family in his absorbing 2003 first novel, "Bloodvine," about
two half-brothers torn apart by jealousy and misunderstanding. In
the ensuing rift, the younger brother relinquishes his inheritance –
his claim to the family grape farm – to the elder, whose bittersweet
victory results in far greater loss.
The brothers’ division looms large in Janigian’s sequel, "Riverbig,"
which follows the separated life of younger brother Andy Demerjian,
who is struggling to support his wife and two young sons at the
novel’s opening. Denied access to his own land, he scrambles for odd
jobs, weighed down by growing debt, with temporary relief found in
alcoholic stupor. Two simultaneous farming opportunities save Andy
from bankruptcy: A widow offers her land for lease, while a school
acquaintance returns from the big city to propose that Andy manage
a nearby land parcel.
The hoped-for success of Andy the lone farmer is clearly what
frames Janigian’s new novel. What gives the story heart, however,
is a redemptive journey for Andy the man: Uprooted from his land, his
parents long gone and now irreparably estranged from his brother and
business partner, Andy is left seemingly untethered to his Armenian
immigrant farming community. As he tends someone else’s soil while
negotiating nature’s difficult whims, so, too, must he nurture tenuous
relationships in order to reclaim belief in his own self, as both a
deserving family man and trusted friend.
At home, Andy finds growing solace in his family-by-marriage. He learns
that honesty brings him closer to his beloved wife, Kareen, whom he
thought he was protecting by hiding their financial distress. He
recognizes the courage of his mother-in-law, Valentine, who was
witness to the harrowing genocide and somehow survived with her
humanity intact. While Valentine celebrates her American life, she
longs to be reunited with her last daughter, whom she left behind in
Egypt after fleeing the Turks. Andy recognizes her loss and works to
make the family whole, even as he comes to accept his own legacy as
the American-born son of a genocide survivor with a dubious past.
Andy begrudgingly accepts the manipulative widow whose land he leases,
and risks her wrath to give time to her damaged but artistically
gifted daughter. Even as he drinks too much, he stands by the local
bar’s owner, a fellow Armenian American struggling to stay afloat in
an ever-changing new social order of loyal customers and aggressive
buyers. He reluctantly hires and befriends two hard-working African
American brothers – a potentially dangerous challenge in a closed,
pre-civil-rights-era community – reluctant only because he knows
their wages must come out of his own much-depleted pockets.
Andy’s farming journey of plowing, planting and hopes for eventually
harvesting tomatoes from one plot and corn from another, ironically
brings him further from the land and closer to the people and events
that comprise his very existence. "Abe," he says silently to his lost
brother, "you can take the certainty of the farm, all you can handle,
and I will take life, with all its shabby uncertainty."