Riverbig

The soil takes you to a place where life begins, to the meaning of it. This thought hung in my mind as I finished Riverbig and closed its cover. Imagining Andy Demerjian's family sitting for Sunday dinner and piling pilaf high on their plates, I was not quite sure they, themselves, were conscious of this fact. But without a doubt, I knew Andy was. And that is the beauty of this sweep of a book: a farmer slowly unveiling the depth of his soul, approaching his field the way he approached his life- with a hopeful curiosity. "I will take life, with all its shabby uncertainty." Aris Janigian has created a wonderful story, showing us a unique land and a unique people. Not only did he capture the trials and tensions of a farmer's life, but his words trickled and flowed not unlike the irrigation waters that run through the fields of the Central Valley, the farmer's land he so beautifully explored.

When I first read Aris Janigian's Bloodvine (which I read twice) the evidence was that if he continued to write as he did, he would be creating literature and I believe that is just what he has done with Riverbig. The book is an articulate, poignant, deeply moving story that is inclusive in the breadth of emotions it expresses. There were paragraphs that I read three times. For example, the beginning of Chapter III was so well done, I wished I had written it myself. I hope this book will not signal the end of Aris Janigian's fiction because it would be a loss not only to the literary community, but even more to the cultural and religious one from which came and which he has so eloquently explored. If I was reviewing this book for Publishers' Weekly, without question it would be a Starred Review.