DVD: The Promise

The Promise is a fictional account of the systematic extermination of the Armenian Christian population undertaken by the Ottoman Empire during World War I. This event has become known as the Armenian Genocide. The movie, directed by George Kelly was made partly to bring attention to this war crime which has never been acknowledged by many Western countries nor by Turkey.

The story begins on the eve of World War I in 1914, in the vast Ottoman Turk Empire. The story is narrated by Michael Boghosian whose family have been apothecaries in the village of Siroun, Southern Turkey for two hundred years. They have served both Christians and Muslims.

Micheal wanted to study medicine at the Imperial School of Medicine in Constantinople but could not afford the fees. He became engaged to Maral and it was decided that he would use the money from her dowry to go to medical school and then return to Siroun to marry her.

At the engagement party, Maral's father Harut gives Michael four hundred gold coins and tells him to make them proud. Michael's father, Vartan gives him a letter for his Uncle Mesrob who lives in Constantinople. Michael tells Maral that he will do the three years of medical studies in two years.

Michael travels to Constantinople where he meets Mesrob, his wife Lena and their two daughters, Yeva and Tamar. He also meets Ana Khesarian, daughter of a famous violinist who is tutor to the Boghosian children. At medical school, Michael meets a Turk, Emre Ogan who is not really interested in medicine but had to choose between it and the military. That Emre is not suited for the medical profession is shown when he faints during a dissection.

Ana and Chris Myers

After class one day Michael meets Ana while she is teaching Yeva and Tamar. He finds her delightful. At a club, Ana introduces Michael and Emre to her friend and lover, Christopher Myers, who immediately recognizes Emre as a playboy who frequents opium dens.Emre tells Michael and Ana that he and Chris know one another from Paris when his father was Deputy Consul and that Chris is a renowned reporter for Associated Press. Chris warns that war is coming to Turkey. At the end of the evening Emre begs them to come to his birthday party that Sunday at Ciragan Palace.

At the party, German warships fire a salute, scaring many who are in attendance. Chris confronts the Germans in attendance, resulting in Emre's father stating that Turkey has every right to have a strong navy to protect its borders. Chris counters that the Turks want to expand their borders and declare war on the infidels - the British, French and Russians. When the German's break out in singing the national anthem, Chris reminds Michael, that  the Armenians are the resident "infidels" and will be the first to be attacked.

Michael attempts to register for a medical school exemption.

On October 29, 1914, Turkey enters World War I on the side of Germany. Immediately all men are enlisted. At the medical school, Michael learns he will not be given a medical school exemption and he is assigned to the third military division while Emre, a Turk is given one. Emre saves Michael by bribing the official to produce the exemption. But this bribe has not gone unnoticed. At the same time Chris sets out to investigate what is happening in Konya. Before he leaves, Chris tells Ana he will obtain an American visa for her but she refuses his help.

Meanwhile Emre is confronted by his father who questions him about the exemption given to Michael Boghosian. Dr. Nazim does not accept Emre's explanation that Michael is a friend, telling him the Armenians are a tumour on the nation that must be removed.  Michael returns to Mesrob's home where he is made an offer by his uncle to buy him out of his betrothal to Ana. Michael refuses stating he has made a promise that he intends to honour.

Chris's investigations reveal that Armenian villages are being burned to the ground and men are being hanged. He also discovers hundreds of people being marched into the desert and witnesses a woman being shot in front of a small child. Meanwhile in Constantinople, things begin deteriorating. After returning from a concert at the cathedral Ana and Michael barely escape from raging Turks who destroy Armenian shops and beat Armenian citizens in the streets. At this time, Mesrob is arrested, leaving Lena alone with their daughters.

During this night, Michael and Ana become intimately involved. The next day they visit Lena and learn that Mesrob has been taken to Sikedji Prison where he is being investigated for treason. Michael takes the remaining gold from his dowry and he and Emre attempt to bribe the Turks at the prison to release Mesrob. Instead, they take his gold and Michael is arrested while Emre is forced by his father to enlist in the military.

What Chris has feared has come to pass - the Armenians are being slaughtered by the Turks, who are determined to rid themselves of infidels. Determined to reveal to the world what is happening Chris contacts American Ambassador Morgenthau. Chris becomes determined to save the woman he loves and as many of the Armenians as possible. He will barely escape with his own life while most of those he has come to love will not be so fortunate.


Discussion

The Promise is a moving tribute to the 1.5 million Armenian Christians who were systematically murdered during World War I by the Turk government. Although there had been previous massacres, for example the Hamidian massacres in the late 1800's by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, international pressure had been brought to bear to stop these massacres. This was not the case in 1915. Instead, western governments dallied when confronted by what was happening, at the expense of millions of lives.

Wonderful performances are given by Oscar Isaac who plays Michael Boghosian, as well as Charlotte Le Bon and Christian Bale who portray Ana Khesarian and Chris Myers respectively. A strong cast of secondary characters,  Marta (Shohreh Aghdashloo), Emre Ogan ( Marwan Kenzari ) and Faruk Pasha (Tamer Hassan) round out the cast.

French helping Armenians onto French warship at Musa Dagh.

Breathtaking cinematography provides a film of stark contrasts. There is the incredible beauty of the Turkish countryside juxtaposed with the horrors of the genocide. Scenes of Armenian Christians being marched into the desert, of whole villages of Armenian Christians shot and bayoneted, of the rounding up and brutalization of Armenian men, of the work camps, and of rail cars packed with Armenian women and children are in sharp contrast to the picturesque villages and the peaceful forests. The happy lives of the Armenians as they live peacefully with their Muslim neighbours and the beautiful Christian service with Father Komitas is in contrast to the Muslim crowd rampaging through the Constantinople destroying businesses, beating and arresting Armenians. 

The movie's final scenes portray the attack on over four thousand Armenians at Musa Dagh and their rescue by the French. Chris, Michael, Yeva and Ana  are among those making their way to the shore along with other survivors. In fact, on September 12, 1915, the French Navy rescued more than four thousand trapped and unarmed Armenians from Musa Dagh mountain.

The obfuscation of Turkish officials when questioned is very effectively portrayed, particularly in the scene where Ambassador Morgenthau confronts Turkish officials. Not all Turks are portrayed badly; Emre Ogan loses his life for helping save the life of his friend Chris Myers and the Deputy Consul warns Pastor Merrill at the American mission that Faruk Pasha will spare no one and they should leave at once.

Unfortunately, the development of a love triangle involving Michael, Chris and Ana detracts from the main focus of the film. The Armenian Genocide is such a significant human story it doesn't require a plot device like a love triangle to engage viewers. Where the film succeeds is in portraying the humanity of the Armenians who love, marry and have children while the world around them goes to hell. Overall though, The Promise mostly succeeds in portraying a significant event of the 20th century and one in which the term "genocide" was first used to describe the systematic killing of a race of people. It is hoped that more films will be made to educate people on a genocide the much of the world still refuse to acknowledge.

Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian

In 1915, twelve year old Vahan Kenderian was the youngest child of a wealthy Armenian lawyer living in Bitlis, a province in Turkey. Vahan had three older brothers, Diran, Tavel and Sisak and two older sisters, Armenouhi and Oskina. His father was well respected by Armenians and Turks alike, who often came to Vahan's home to consult with his father. Bitlis did not have many Turks in 1915 but Vahan had heard about the massacre of Armenians by Turks years before in Adana. Vahan was really not concerned about this. He was a typical twelve year old from a well-to-do family, full of confidence that he would one day be a man of influence like his father. His father however thought Vahan to be lacking in character and discipline.

One day in the early spring of 1915, two gendarmes came to the house informing Vahan's father that he was wanted at the government buildings. Although his mother tried not to appear alarmed, the police summoning Sarkis Kenderian seemed ominous. He does not return and the in the days following his disappearance, strange things began to happen. Vahan saw bloodied and bruised men led away by the gendarmes. The shops began closing, Oskina and Armenouhi heard screams coming from the prison, Diran heard gunshots from the center of town and Tavel had heard that the homes of several Armenians had been burned to the ground. Armenian homes were searched for guns, churches were ransacked and priests accused of being traitors. Vahan and his family began to realize that the Armenian community was being attacked by the Turks.

Vahan's father's younger brother, Uncle Mumpreh is also taken away, being considered a revolutionary. Soon women and children, survivors of a massacre in Van where the men were murdered and their homes burned by the Turkish army began arriving in Bitlis. Vahan and his family heard stories about Selim Bey, the governor of Van, who had murdered thousands of Armenians. Karnigh, the Kenderian's horseman committed suicide when he learned that his entire family had been murdered.  

Soon hundreds of men, women, and children, the very young and the very old are seen streaming out of the city. Uncle Mumpreh is returned home a completely changed man. He filled three bags with poison and gave them to Vahan's mother and his two sisters telling them that if anything happens they are to take the poison in the bags. The next day soldiers arrive at the house and after terrorizing the family, murder Diran and Tavel. Their murders forever change Vahan's family; his mother stares outside the window at the garden where her two sons lie buried, Oskina begins wearing their father's shirts, his grandmother reads the Bible and Sisak sits by his brother's graves, while Armenouhi rarely leaves her bedroom. A week later the soldiers returned, questioned Vahan's family and then take them to Goryan's Inn where they are locked in a room.

On the walk to Goryan's Inn, Vahan notices that everyone is gone, the houses are empty, the shops closed, the streets dirty. Vahan, his brother Sisak, his mother Meera, his grandmother and his two sisters Oskina and Armenouhi are kept locked in a room with other Armenian captives. At night the soldiers come to take the girls to rape them and when Armenouhi sees that this will be her fate she takes the poison and dies. Eventually all the remaining captives from the inn are marched towards Diarbekir, where Vahan and his family see hundreds of corpses along the road.  Eventually they arrive at the River Tigris which is filled with floating corpses. When the soldiers kill fifty of the Armenians, including his grandmother, on the banks of the Tigris, and later begin killing the boys, Vahan's mother insists that he and his brother escape during the night. Both Vahan and Sisak manage to do and so begins Vahan's long struggle to survive.

Discussion

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide which saw the systematic murder of 1.5 million Armenian Christians in Turkey in 1915. At the beginning of World War I there were approximately two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish population never fully accepted the Armenian Christians in their country. There had been repeated attacks against them in previous years and the Ottoman government considered them a security threat. As a result the government which was controlled by three members of the Committee of Union and Progress called the Young Turks made a decision to eliminate the entire Armenian Christian population.

The plan was to eliminate the leaders of the Armenian community first and then to systematically murder all the men. This plan began in 1915 and continued until 1923. The western nations of America, Britain and France protested against the massacres but in reality, the international community did little to stop it. Despite the fact that there were many witnesses to the genocide as well as much documented evidence, Turkey has never admitted to committing genocide. Forgotten Fire tells the story of one young boy who witnesses the extermination of almost all his family.

Forgotten Fire is based on the true story of Adam Bagdasarian's great-uncle during the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Bagdasarian's uncle, Vahridj Kenderian made a tape of his experiences during the genocide shortly before his death in America. Kenderian was able to emigrate to America, married and lived in New Jersey where he had his own business as a photoengraver. His life, according to the author was a happy one. Bagdasarian spent ten years writing Forgotten Fire as he found information at that time on the Armenian Genocide was somewhat limited. However, in the years leading up to the 100th anniversary of the genocide, much information is now available online. In addition, the murder of 1.5 million Armenian Christians was recently referred to as "genocide" by Pope Francis.

Bagdasarian chose the title, Forgotten Fire, as a reference to the tenacity and strength that adversity can develop within a person. In an interview from Random House he states,
"The Hitler quote at the beginning of the book is meant to convey that the Armenian genocide was a forgotten chapter in world history, and also show the connection between the genocide of the Armenians and the later genocide of the Jews. In other words, if we forget the past, we imperil our future. The “fire” part of the title refers to the part where Vahan’s father tells his children that steel is made strong by fire. The experiences in the book represent Vahan’s fire, the fire for all Armenians–the fire of adversity that either consumes us or makes us stronger. So “Forgotten Fire” stands for this fire of adversity for the Armenian people that was forgotten by the world." And in fact, loss and the ability to cope with adversity are strong themes in the novel.

Vahan is a remarkably resilient young boy who changes drastically from the boy he was before the genocide. Before the genocide, Vahan believed that "character and discipline were consolation prizes given to the meek, the unadventurous, and the unlucky." Vahan believed that time and destiny would bring him the blessings of a good life. "I knew that time and destiny were my allies, the twin magicians of my fate: Time would transform me into the tallest, strongest man in Bitlis, and destiny would transform me into one of the wealthiest, most admired men in Turkey." Ironically, Vahan is taken into Ara Sarkisian's home, an Armenian who at one time had been "a strongman in his village, performing feats of strength on the street for money." At seventy-four years of age however, time has taken this strength and he wisely tells Vahan to work for things that are more permanent than beauty and strength. " 'Time takes everything, Vahan. But your heart, your character, your faith, do not belong to time. So build your home here,' he said, touching his chest. 'And make that home strong, make that home beautiful. Then you will always be safe, and you will never be along.' "

By the end of his journey out of Armenia and to Constantinople, Vahan sees the importance of discipline and character. He is determined to learn as much as he can so he can become more for his family and for himself. The adversity has forged a steel inside him "that made it possible for me to get out of that bed and pretend I was myself; it was the steel that helped me study when all the other boys had gone to sleep." He comes to know "that character and discipline are the steel that fortify" life and that they will ultimately bring blessings that counter the "pain and disillusionment" of life.

Forgotten Fire spares young readers none of the atrocities committed during the Armenian genocide; the cold blooded murder of innocent people, the disappearance of Armenian leaders and intelligentsia, the burning alive of Armenians in their homes, the rape of young girls, mothers and the elderly, the death marches and the annihilation of entire families. The details are not graphic but simply stated in a way that is realistic. As a twelve year old boy, Vahan often had no idea at the time what was really happening. For example, when Uncle Mumpreh gives bags of poison to the women in the family, Vahan doesn't understand what the "trouble" might be.

Vahan Kenderian was an immature twelve year old boy who took for granted his family and the security of his home. At the beginning of the book he stated, "I walked with the confidence of a boy who has grown up in luxury and knows that he will always be comfortable, always well fed, always warm in winter and cool in summer." By the time Vahan has survived several years on the run and ends up in a girls orphanage in Sivas with nothing but the tattered clothes on his back, he "wanted a home and a family more than anything in the world." He knows "that there was probably no such place and no such people" as his home is gone and his family murdered.

Forgotten Fire is highly recommended to those who are interested in history and want to learn more by reading historical fiction. Vahan's strong narrative and the compelling story of a boy trying to survive under horrific conditions will engage readers completely. Bagdasarian has included a map detailing Vahan's journey and provides both a Foreword to set the historical background and an Epilogue that states what became of Vahan. Sadly one hundred years later, little seems to have changes with regard to genocide in this part of the world. The massacres of Yazidis and Christians in Syria and Iraq by militant Islamists seems to demonstrate we have not yet learned from history. This only makes Forgotten Fire all the more relevant in educating young readers in the lessons history can teach.

For more information on the Armenian Genocide please check out the Armenian National Institute's website at https://www.armenian-genocide.org/index.html

Book Details:

Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian
New York: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc.     2000
272 pp.

All The Light There Was by Nancy Kricorian

Ten days before the German army marched down the rue de Belleville in Paris, fourteen year old Maral Pegorian's family begins stockpiling food. Her parents know only too well the suffering during war, having survived the Armenian Massacres as children, during the first World War.

Maral and her sixteen year old brother Missak, live with their parents, Arniz and Garabed and her mother's sister, Auntie Shakeh in an apartment in Belleville, a suburb of Paris. People begin fleeing Belleville but Maral's parents, understand that marches supposedly to safety can lead to unexpected horrors. Maral's father states, "We're staying put. The last exodus we saw led straight to hell." Instead they decide to stay in their home to wait out the German occupation.  Their neighbourhood in Belleville is diverse, consisting of French from the Auvergne, Armenians, Greeks and Eastern European Jews.

When the Nazi tanks, armored trucks and black uniformed soldiers arrive, the Pegorians and their neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Kacherian and their sons, Zaven and Barkev and their daughter, Virginie, watch the ominous procession from the Kacherian's apartment.

In November, Missak, Maral, Zaven, Barkev and other young people including Henri and Jacqueline Sahadian, go to a rally at the Arc de Triomphe. The rally attended by thousands of lycee and university students is in remembrance of Armistice Day, November 11th, which the Germans are not keen to celebrate. When the Germans move to end the rally, shots are fired, and Jacqueline and Maral run to safety at the Armenian cathedral on Jean-Goujon.

Life continues on in Belleville despite the Occupation. Maral begins to find herself attracted to Zaven. She continues to attend the Lycee Victor Hugo with her friend Denise Rozenbaum who is Jewish. However, the school is not unaffected by the Nazis as Mademoiselle Levy, their Latin and Greek teacher is dismissed because she is Jewish. Missak begins working for the Resistance, chalking the walls in the neighbourhood with victory messages. He also decides to take a job as an apprentice in the printing shop. His passion is for drawing and not for school. Food grows scarce but the Pegorians are able to procure a laying hen from Maral's mother's cousins, the Nazarians who live in Alfortville.

Soon the Germans come to the rue de Belleville rounding up the Jewish families in the neighbourhood.  Maral suggests that the Lipski's leave their daughter, Claire with them, even though children are to go too. Maral goes to the Lipski's apartment  and they quickly agree to send Claire with the Pegorians. The Lipski's are taken, even though Sara Lipski is heavily pregnant, and Maral's friend, Denise Rozenbaum and her family are also rounded up.

Missak is shocked at what his family has done, telling them the Nazi's are filling buses on the rue de Belleville with the Jewish families to be taken to the  Velodrome d'Hiver. The Pegorians care for Claire but realize they will not be able to hide Claire for long. Maral brings food and clothing to the Lipskis at the Velodrome and they ask Maral to contact Sara's sister, Myriam in Nice. Missak arranges, through the resistance to get Clair out of Paris to her aunt in Nice. The Pegorians begin to realize they many have saved Claire's life when Missak tells his family the Jews are to be shipped to work camps in the east.

During the winter, Auntie Shakeh becomes terminally ill with tuberculosis. Dr. Odabashian tells Maral's mother that it is only a matter of time before she dies. Auntie Shakeh's death affects Maral's mother deeply and even after the forty days of mourning, her mother continues to be distraught and withdrawn.

Maral begins seeing Zaven that winter, after Shakeh's death, for a few hours every Sunday afternoon. Sometimes she has dinner at Zaven's home and one day his father, who is a shoemaker, offers to make Maral a pair of shoes. It is Barkev who traces her feet on a piece of cardboard and measures her for the shoes. Maral tells Zaven that she has always wanted to marry him and this leads Zaven to suggest they do so after she has finished her schooling. After exams are over in the spring, Zaven reveals that Barkev has been called up to report to the German's new mandatory work program, the service du travail obligatoire or STO. Zaven and Missak are too young to be called up but Barkev is twenty. Zaven tells Maral that Barkev is not going and that they are both going into hiding. By the following Sunday Missak informs Maral that both brothers have gone into hiding. It is a decision that will have dire consequences for both brothers and Maral, bringing devastation to both the Pegorian and the Kacherian families.

Discussion

All The Light There Was is a tale of war, love,suffering and irreplaceable loss in a community too familiar with the horrors of war. The focus is on the experience of one family in the close knit Armenian community in Paris, through the eyes of a young girl who comes of age during the Nazi Occupation of Paris. Yet the novel demonstrates the wide ranging effect of the war on virtually everyone, making Maral's narration feel authentic.

The stress of the occupation weakens and eventually kills Auntie Shakeh as it rekindles horrific memories of what she endured as a child in Mosul. The Kacherians lose both of their beloved sons, Zaven to typhus in the concentration camp, Buchenwald, Barkev as a result of the great psychological trauma endured at the same camp.Maral loses her dearly beloved Zaven, her future husband, as well as  her best friend, Denise Rozenbaum and her family. Claire Lipski never sees her mother and father and sibling again. If anything, the novel demonstrates the vast changes, the holes in the lives of those left behind. And as Maral writes, "The war was a great factory of suffering, all of it fashioned by human hands."  In the midst of all the tragedy is the forbearance of Maral's parents, especially her father who believes that having survived the tragedy of the Armenian genocide, they will survive this calamity too.

The first person narrator, Maral Pegorian is a bright, ambitious young girl who considers many possibilities for her life. She has known since she was a child that she wants to marry Zaven Kacherian, but as she tells him when he asks her about marriage, she also wants to complete her education and perhaps "go to the ecole normale and become a teacher."

 Maral is also faithful to her promise to wait for Zaven. She does struggle with her attraction to another Armenian man, Andon Shirvanian, but when she faces the reality of her increasing attraction, she ends the relationship, telling him "...The war will be over any day now. I'll be expecting Zaven back. And it's not right that I should let myself have these feelings about you. It's not fair to Zaven, or to you."

Kricorian has indicated that the genesis for this novel came about during her research into various resistance groups, among them the French Resistance, for her second novel. She discovered a group of French Resistance headed by the Armenian poet, Missak Manouchian who is mentioned in All The Light There Was. Maral's father considers Manouchian to be "a hero and a patriot." when he learns that he has been shot at Mont-Valerian.

To learn more about the Armenian experience in France, Kricorian read the memoir of the famous French Armenian actor, Charles Aznavour whose real name is Shahnour Varinag Aznavourian and she also interviewed numerous Armenians who had been in the resistance under Manouchian. Soviet Armenians who were captured by the Germans were forced to serve in the Wehrmacht and sent to France to build fortifications along the Atlantic coast. These Armenians, represented by the character Andon Shirvanian in the novel, often met the French Armenians at social functions hosted by the Aznavourians, who attempted to convince them to desert the German army. Shirvanian, like many Soviet Armenians faced a no-win situation. When he was captured by the Germans, he accepted an offer to enter into the German army. This is when Maral first meets him. However, when he was shipped back to Germany after the Allies land in France,  the train he was on was bombed. He fled to the resistance in Belgium but they could not take him in as the Allies had made a deal with Stalin to return all Soviet POWs.  As a soldier for the Soviet Union he was expected to die on the battlefield defending the motherland, and doing anything less than that, such as being taken prisoner would mean being shipped to a camp in Siberia. He decided to escape and find his way to France.

Andon creates a great deal of conflict for Maral in the novel. First she finds herself falling for him in the absence of Zaven whom she promised to be faithful. Then they meet again after they both know that Zaven will not be returning, but Maral now considers marriage to be not just about love but also about duty. After Barkev's death, Andon is still waiting but first Maral must come to terms with what he did during the war. This she does, as she explains to Jacqueline, "He was an Armenian prisoner of war who had a choice between dying and putting on a German uniform."  She now must face the disapproval of her brother, Missak and his wife, Jacqueline and possibly her father. Her sense of obligation to her son and her family are overwhelming. However, it is her father who helps her decide when he tells her that the responsibility for the decision is hers. He also tells her that in light of what he has experienced in his life, "you give people more room to do what is human." Maral's ability to do just that, allows her the chance to rebuild her life, while still honouring the memory of both Zaven and Barkev.

All The Light There Was could easily be a young adult novel, since the story is that of a young woman coming of age during World War II. The time period in the novel runs from 1940 when Maral Pergorian is fourteen years old turning fifteen to 1946 when she is twenty-one. The unappealing cover however is likely to miss this age group but will drawn in adult readers in search of a well written story with a satisfying ending.

Book Details:
All The Light There Was by Nancy Kricorian
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt        2013
279 pp.

Like Water On Stone by Dana Walrath

 Like Water on Stone tells the story in free verse of the Donabedian family during the Armenian genocide of 1915 to 1919.  The family consists of Papa, Mama, older brothers Kevorg and Misak, Anahid, thirteen year old Shahen and his twin sister Sosi and their younger sister, five year old Mariam who live in Palu, deep inside the Ottoman Empire. The Donabedian family are Armenian Christians who live in a country ruled by Muslim Turks and Kurds. Their Papa survived the 1895 massacre of Christians ordered by Sultan Hamid.

In Part I Palu 1914 the poems portray the everyday life in Palu in which the lives of Muslim Turks and Kurds and Armenian Christians are seemingly intertwined with one another. Yet there are signs that all is not well.  For example, Shahen's older sister, Anahid has married Asan, a Kurd. This makes other Armenian families reluctant to marry their daughters to the older Donabedian boys. Mama insists that they must marry their own kind- that is other Christians. Sosi is being taught by her Mama how to run a household, to cook, to dye wool, to weave and to bargain for fabrics. When they go to purchase wool they are insulted by the Turks they purchase fabric from. But Sosi's mother reminds her daughter that despite being ruled for miles by Turks, the land they live on belongs to the Armenians who planted the olive trees. Papa considers the Turks his friends; they make music together but do the Turks and Kurds feel the same way about the Armenian Christians?

The poetry also portrays life in Palu in 1914. Throughout the summer of 1914, Shahen and Sosi carry baskets of apricots from the trees that lined the river up to the roof to be dried. Meanwhile Shahen tried to convince his Papa to let him travel to America, but Papa wants him to study with Father Manoog so he can go to college in Kharpert. Papa's friends, his daughter's inlaws Palewan and her husband Kaban with his duduk and zurna and Mustafa Bey Injeli and his dumbek come to play music with him. Days later Anahid comes from the market with a poem written in the hand of Vahan, the son of Baron Bedros, a Turk, whom Sosi loves. As the summer passes, the olives ripen to black and the grapes are harvested.

The Donabedian family receives a letter from Mama's brother who lives in New York, warning them that war has begun and they must leave the Ottoman Empire. He asks them to at least send Shahen to America but Papa refuses saying that the Turks and Kurds he knows are his friends and that they will not harm them.  However, as summer slips into autumn and the persimmons ripen, the Turks fights the Russians and the Armenians are expected to fight alongside the Turks. Shahen begs Papa to send him and Misak and Kevorg to America. "Papa will not listen."

Part II Massacre 1915 opens with soldiers coming to the Donabedian mill searching for weapons.  When the family have no weapons to give the soldiers as they are millers, they are threatened with arrest. Armenians are sent to build the Baghdad Railway and Anahid's husband, Asan is sent to fight at the Russian front. While their leaders and men are imprisoned, other families go into hiding or leave. One such family is the Arkalian's whom Father Manoog blesses before they leave.

Despite Papa's assurances that they are safe, soldiers come to the mill and arrest Kevorg and Misak. Baron Kaban and Baron Mustafa vouch for Papa and his family and the Turkish soldiers leave but the family fear for Shahen who is in school. Shahen manages to sneak home and his parents dress him as a girl so he will not be taken away as his brothers were. Then at dawn one day, Papa tells Shahen to take his sisters, Sosi and Mariam to the highest field and not to return until they come for them. If they do not, he is to take them south to Aleppo to the Forty Martyrs Church where there is a priest who helped their uncle travel to America. Shahen, Sosi and Mariam run into the hills in the hopes of meeting their parents again. But the horrifying screams tell Shahen that probably Papa and Mama will not be coming to get them. And so Shahen begins the journey over the mountains and across the desert to Aleppo. It is a journey that will see their faith, their perseverance tested to the limit.

Part III  Journey 1915 and Part IV 1919 provide the details of Shahen and his sisters' journey to Aleppo and what happens when they arrive there.

Discussion

The story in Like Water On Stone mirrors the events of author Dana Walrath's Armenian ancestors. Her mother's mother (Dana Walrath's grandmother) Oghidar Troshagirian hid during the day and travelled at night with her siblings after their parents were killed, in order to escape the massacre. Like many descendants of survivors of the Armenian genocide, Walrath knows little about what happened to her grandparents (her grandfather Yeghishe Mashoian was also a survivor) as this horrific event was something not spoken about. Walrath knows that once her grandmother arrived in Aleppo she and her siblings were able to emigrate to America because her maternal uncle lived in New York. She also learned that her family were millers in Palu and that several older siblings of her grandmother did escape as well.

In 1984, Walrath and her husband travelled to Palu where they asked people living in the area about the location of nearby mills. They eventually found a mill with buildings attached in the woods near a fast flowing stream. They met a woman whose family now owned the mill. "She said that the mill had been in her family for sixty years; before that, it had belonged to Armenians. With anti-Armenian stories running Turkish newspapers that summer, and all visible traces of Armenian inhabitants systematically denied or destroyed, I had kept my identity hidden as we traveled. But I told her the truth. We held each other's gaze as the water hit the mill wheel and the stone of the stream. The official Turkish policy of genocide denial evaporated for one brief moment on that rooftop."

The story of the Donabedian family is told in four voices, Shahen, Sosi, Mariam and the eagle, Ardziv. Ardziv becomes attached to the family when Sosi finds a quill from the eagle one day while dyeing wool. The feather will be used by her Papa to make music on his oud. The eagle feels that

"If my quill could pull laments
from the strings of an oud,
I thought, then
my heart might heal."

Ardziv had a mate and young birds in the nest before his mate was killed. The killing of Ardziv's mate by a Turkish man is a foreshadowing of the genocide. The killing is senseless in the eyes of the eagle, who hunts only for food. But as he watched the Turk and his son pluck the feathers from her wings and leave her carcass for the vultures Ardziv realized his mate's killing was done for her feathers and nothing else. Because of this Ardziv decides to watch over the three young people as they journey south through the mountains towards Aleppo.

It is Ardziv who first sees the movement of soldiers faraway.
"In distant lands
lines of soldiers
moved locust-like.
across  the earth,
their bodies clad
in identical
greens and browns,
rifles up like antennae."

And later on Ardziv sees the truth behind the Armenian men who are marched along.
"I followed the soldiers
with every fit 
Armenian man....
They walked them
in a line
along the river
for miles,
pushing
and poking
with guns,
their hands tied.
They stopped.
They stripped them.
They turned them.
They shot them.
They threw the bodies
into the river."

When Papa realizes his mistake too late, he reaches up towards Ardziv stating "No land is worth a child's life. Protect them. Please."
Ardziv states,
"I made a promise
to the empty sky.
These three young ones
would not die."

When Shahen hides with his sisters on the hilltop, Ardziv circles watching them and as they leave Palu, he follows the three young people as they go high up into the mountains to be safe. When Ardziv sees that Mariam is starving he begins to hunt for the three bringing them rabbit and snake to eat. And when a brown bear begins following them after catching the scent of blood, Ardziv leads her away from Shahen and his siblings. And when Shahen and Mariam are hurt after falling into a crack in the rocks, the eagle leads Sosi to where she can find food. The eagle accompanies them across the desert to Aleppo. Again and again, he comes to the children's aid.

Ardziv serves as the one narrator who is not in danger and who can protect the children. The eagle sees the full extent of the genocide from his vantage point in the sky. He knows the danger the Turks present because he has experienced it himself. Through the eagles eyes the reader experiences the horrors of the genocide, the murder of the men by the river and the mutilation and death of Papa and Mama. He is a the one character through which the author can express the feelings of terror, horror and anger that the mass killings evoke.

Walrath's poetry is eloquent and deeply touching. Though simple and even sparse at times, the beautiful poems in this novel express the true horror of the Armenian genocide. After setting up in detail the way the Christian Armenians live - their strong family life, the dyeing of wool, harvesting of apricots to be dried on the rooftops, the picking olives and grapes, the pruning of grape vines, the work in the mill, the music of the oud- as the story moves forward, the poems portray the terror, suffering and the overwhelming sense of loss the Armenian community experiences as first their men are rounded up and then family after family are butchered, some burned alive in their homes, others raped, mutilated and beheaded.

Sometimes it is what is not said by Walrath's poems that conveys the horror so effectively. After months in the mountains, the realization  that Mama and Papa will not meet them in Aleppo and that Misak and Kevorg are likely dead, comes to thirteen year old Sosi, Despite this awful revelation, the novel ends on a hopeful note - a future in America where they can be free, something that 1.5 million Armenians never had the chance.

Demonstrating that not all Muslims cooperated in the genocide, Walrath includes numerous honourable Turks, including Mustafa who binds his wife, Fatima, so she will not reveal what she knows about the Donabedians, Kaban, Palewan and Mustafa who wash and bury Papa and Mama and the kindly Bedouin who takes the three Donabedian children into his care in the desert, making sure they get safely to Aleppo.

Sadly the conflict between Muslims and Christians continues in the part of the world today, over one hundred years later with the destruction of the Armenian Holy Martyrs Church in Der Zor, Syria. This church was set up as a memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide and was brazenly destroyed by the militant Muslim group ISIS.

There are many excellent resources online and in print about the Armenian Genocide. Dana Walrath has included a long Author's Note, a Glossary, a map, and a detailed list of Resources for readers to explore in her novel.

Those interested in history, especially World War I, and who wish a more personal touch to their historical fiction will find Like Water On Stone to be engaging. Although deeply tragic, the element of hope and thankfulness permeates the ending.  Shahen knows what could have been his and his sisters' fate - a death march or a forced conversion to Islam. There's no sugar coating what was done. Like Water On Stone is historical fiction at its best - vivid, realistic and factual.

Book Details:
Like Water On Stone by Dana Walrath
New York: Delacorte Press     2014
353 pp.

Dance of the Banished by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch"s Dance of the Banished explores the controversial Armenian genocide which occurred almost 100 years ago in Ottoman Turkey. Repeatedly denied by the government of Turkey over the past century, the 20th century's first large scale genocide took place in the Anatolia region as Turks turned on their Armenian Christian citizens and annihilated them through mass murder and death marches into the desert. Despite Turkey's repeated refusal to acknowledge internationally the Armenian genocide, there is much evidence proving the Young Turk government's mass murder of its Christian population, the destruction of Armenian culture and intelligentsia, including the seizure of property and the desecration of Armenian holy sites.International recognition of the Armenian genocide has been slow and hindered by political interference as Turkey is important geographically to the United States and other NATO countries.

Almost one hundred years later,  the region to the south has experienced yet another violent "cleansing" by a radical Muslim group known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which seeks to establish a Sunni caliphate in the area. Armenian and Syrian Christians, Yazidis, and Shi'ite Muslims are the victims of  ethnic cleansing in this modern conflict.

Ali Hassan announces to his beloved Zeynep that he will be traveling to Canada.Hagop Gregorian was to have taken Ali's younger brother, Yousef, with him to Canada but instead will take Ali. The men worked in other countries sending money home for their wives to pay taxes and support their families. Ali promises Zeynep that he will return to marry her, giving her a journal and asking her to use it to record what is happening to her and then mail it to him. He promises to do the same with his journal. But Zeynep will have none of it. She tells Ali she will not wait for him and refuses to be his betrothed.

With this beginning, the novel, divided into eight parts, tells the story of Ali in Canada and Zeynep in Turkey during the years of 1913 until late 1917. Their narratives form the separate parts of the novel beginning with Zeynep in Eyolmez, Anatolia in June of 1913. Still reeling from Ali's departure, Zeynep becomes determined to leave her village. Zeynep is not on good terms with Ali's mother who has complained to the dede about her. Zeynep's cousin, Fatma who is married to Ali's brother Yousef, has a baby girl along with a son named Suleyman. In December of 1913, the Turkish army takes Zeynep's brother, Turabi, along with Riza and Hassan. Early in 1914, Protestant missionaries arrive in Zeynep's village attempting to convert the Alevi Kurds to Christianity. When Zeynep tells the teacher, Miss Anton, who is from Toronto, Canada about wanting to come with her to Harput, Miss Anton flatly refuses because Zeynep will not convert to Christianity.

Zeynep decides to take matters into her own hands and when the missionaries leave for Harput she follows them on foot. She is eventually discovered and welcomed by Reverend John Emmonds and his wife, Lenore. Before arriving in Harput they stop in Mezreh, which is half Armenian and is headquarters for the Ottoman Army, where Zeynep helps them.  In Harput Zeynep finds the Emmonds home to be spacious and is puzzled by the many empty rooms. Zeynep meets Keghani an Armenian girl who lives with the Emmonds and Yester an Armenian woman who comes in to cook for them. Yester's husband, Onnig does various chores for the missionaries.

At first life is good; Zeynep and Keghani work at the hospital and then attend lectures at the college. They are well treated by the Emmonds. From her mother's letter she learns that the Turkish soldiers are raiding the villages and young men are being forced into the army.

By August, 1914, Zeynep hears that Austria, Germany and Serbia are at war with Russia. Since Germany and Turkey are allies it likely means Turkey will enter the war. When Zeynep learns that all men between the ages of twenty and forty-five must enlist or they will be hunted down she worries about Turabi. Quickly the situation escalates out of control. Armenian men trying to avoid the draft are imprisoned, the men are marched up and down the streets and are beaten, soldiers steal from the marketplace, and the women and children begin to starve. By September the soldiers, including the Armenian men and Turkish officers are marched out of  Harput through Zeynep's village of Eyolmez to Erzurum where there is fighting.

A month later, Fatma, Aunt Besse and Suleyman show up in Harput bearing a terrible story. When the Turkish soldiers came to Eyolmez they stole everything from both Armenian and Alevi alike. With the villages in the area all overrun by the Turkish soldiers, the people fled into the mountains. It was there that Fatma's baby died. Fatma tells Zeynep that there were no Armenian soldiers with the Turks, which puzzles her because she knows the Armenian men left with the Turkish army. Fatma also gives Zeynep a letter written to her by Ali.

Ali's narration begins in January of 1915 in Kapuskasing, Ontario.He is a prisoner of war having been sent to northern Ontario because in the eyes of the government he is from Turkey and therefore must be a Turk - an ally of Germany and therefore at war with Canada. This Ali cannot understand because he is an Alevi Kurd, one of the original inhabitants of Anatolia. The Canadians believe that anyone in Turkey who is not Christian must be Muslim.

When Ali first arrived in Canada he worked in the foundry in Brantford. But when the war started, all foreigners were fired and now without work Ali struggles to make ends meet. Both Ali and Yousef are arrested along with many other men, for allegedly trying to blow up the post office. Ali's landlord, Hagop Gregorian tries to reason with the police but he is told that they have orders from the government in Ottawa. First he is sent to Fort Henry in Kingston, Ontario and then to the wilderness of Kapuskasing where he is ordered to chop down trees to make bunkhouses for the prisoners.

What follows in alternating parts are the stories of Ali and Zeynep. Ali struggles to cope with the loneliness and hardship of the north and the sometimes brutal treatment by the guards. They are forced to cut down the beautiful huge trees which Ali feels is a terrible wrong.  The terrible conditions leads him to make a rash decision which almost results in severe consequences. Hearing about Turkey's involvement in the war, Ali is desperately worried about what has happened to Zeynep. Will he ever see her again?

Meanwhile, Zeynep can only watch as her country dissolves into the chaos of what eventually becomes the Armenian genocide. First she learns that the Turkish Army has killed all the Armenian men, and then that all Armenians are to be deported. Suspecting that this will be another massacre Zeynep seeks the help of the American Consulate, who encourages her to continue recording what is happening in Harput.  Zeynep cannot understand why the government is killing the Armenians.The Alevi's try to help the few Armenians left but they soon find themselves the focus of the next wave of ethnic cleansing by the Turks. Zeynep's only chance to escape may be through the Dersim Mountains and into Russia.

Discussion

Dance of the Banished is a beautifully crafted novel, from its gorgeous cover (a painting by Pascal Milelli) inviting readers into its pages, to the well-told story of two lovers separated by distance and war. Using alternating narratives, Skrypuch effectively presents the effects of war in two very different countries. In Harput, we experience the horror of the Armenian genocide through Zeynep's eyes as she struggles to understand what it happening.

People who had lived in this area for thousands of years were being rounded up and killed? I tried to set my emotions aside to make sense of it from the government's point of view. What was their purpose? Did they want all the businesses to grind to a halt and all the shops to close? What about the hospitals? Without the Armenians, who would run them? Killing the Armenians would even harm the Turks, so why were they doing this?"

When the magnitude of the killing becomes apparent to Zeynep she finds it incomprehensible.

"Mr. Davis estimates that a million and a half Armenians have been killed. Is that even possible? Each of those million and half people was a living, breathing human being like you or me."

From Zeynep we learn that the American Consul, Leslie Davis tried to get word out to the world via telegrams and photographs but these never got through. The American Consulate eventually hid hundreds of Armenians, men, women and children. Skrypuch is not overly graphic but she does managed to convey a sense of the brutality and the extent of the genocide through descriptions of the wounded, "the threadbare Armenians marched past Harput....to be marched in circles in the desert until they die." Especially tragic is Zeynep's encounter in the market

Skrypuch isn't afraid to identify those involved of the massacre when Zeynep sees a group of Turks and Muslim Kurds chanting "Praise be to Allah. Bless us in our efforts to kill the Christians." and she cannot understand the Kurds involvement since they themselves have been persecuted in Turkey.

Through Ali's eyes we see the ignorance of a predominantly British Canada, whose people and government don't understand other cultures who in war time, automatically violate basic human rights. Ali struggles to endure the poor rations, the bitter cold and his loss of freedom. Ali has a chance at freedom when Nadie offers him the opportunity to live with her people. But Ali recognizes that living such a different life has a price; abandoning who he is and failing to stand up for what he believes in.

Many young Canadians will find Ali's experience as a prisoner in Canada disturbing. Ali considered himself someone loyal to Canada, yet he was imprisoned solely because of his nationality and endured hard labour for several years. Unfortunately, this practice continued in the Second World War, with the internment of Canadians of Japanese and also of Italian heritage.

The author's extensive research on the Armenian genocide is evident in Dance of the Banished. Her development of the setting of the novel is realistic and her characters believable for this time period and for the Alevi culture she portrays so well. The title refers to the semah, a religious ritual dance between Alevi men and women that has a special spiritual significance. With the departure of Ali and the breakdown of society in Harput and Ali's incarceration, neither can perform this dance. When they are reunited, Zeynep and Ali feel whole again and are able to perform the semah.

There are two excellent maps included, on the back of the front and back covers. The first map is of  Anatolia, showing its location relative to Syria and Russia. The map at the back of the novel is of Kapuskasing, Ontario. The map illustrations were done by John Lightfoot and are very well done. My library copy obscured these maps by taping the cover flaps down. Also included are photographs of the Kapuskasing Internment Camp. The author also has an interesting note detailing her research and how she came to write the novel.

Dance of the Banished is an excellent piece of historical fiction and Marsha Forchuk Skyrpuch's best work to date. Definitely a future White Pine Award winner for this increasingly popular and talented Canadian children's author.

Book Details:
Dance of the Banished by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
Toronto: Pajama Press        2014
233 pp.

The Road from Home by David Kherdian

Veron lived a peaceful, happy life in Azizya with her family consisting of her mother and father, her younger sister,Yeghisapet, and her two younger brothers, Apkar and Harutiun. Her father Benyat Dumehjian,  was a wealthy, respected Armenian businessman who sold gum from poppies and also mohair. Veron was also blessed to have a large extended family; her Aunt Lousapere and Uncle Apraham (who was her favourite), her beloved grandma, her cousine Hrpsime, and many others.  Her days were filled with visiting her grandma, going to the Turkish baths, and playing with her sister Yeghi.

Although on the surface it seemed like the Armenians got along with the Turks, Veron knew there had been trouble between the two groups. She was too young to understand what had happened in the years before - the previous massacres in the years before she was born. One day her family learned that they were to be deported. Her mother packed and her father brought the horse-drawn wagon from his mother's home so that they could leave their home. It was 1915 and the Armenians of Azizya were being forced on a march to an unknown destination.

Through the eyes of Veron, we follow her family on its death march through Konya, Adana and onto Meskene. In Meskene, with the unrelenting rain, comes cholera and then death to many of the Armenian Christians. Eventually, almost everyone in Veron's family becomes ill with cholera and when she awakes from the illness, only Veron and her mother and father remain alive. After such tragedy, her mother, unable to cope with such terrible losses, also dies.

While waiting in Meskene, Veron's papa learns that the Turks mean to march the Armenians to Deir el Zor, a town in Syria. Her father realizes that if they go there, they will not survive, so they escape back into Turkey to a town called Birijik. Here Veron is left by her papa in the care of several Armenian "aunties". When her father dies, Veron begins working for two Turkish ladies so that she and her aunties can have money for food.

Eventually Veron travels to Aleppo to stay with relatives who plan to return to Afyon and bring her back to her grandmother in Azizya. These relatives, her father's cousin and his wife, have opened a coffee house in Aleppo and are waiting for the war (World War I) to end. However, Veron is treated more like a maid than a relative and is not allowed to attend school, something she dearly wants to do. A neighbour, Madame Markarian notices this situation and offers Veron a chance to go the Reverend Aharon's Orphanage, which she accepts. Once there, Veron who is now almost ten years old, has a somewhat settled life, making friends and taking lessons on Armenia and her heritage. She thrives at the orphanage.

Veron stays at the orphanage until she is almost twelve years old, eventually leaving with her relatives to return to Afyon. It is 1919 and for the first time in four years, Veron is reunited with her beloved grandmother. When Veron returns with her to Azizya, she finds her village much changed, like the Armenian survivors. Veron, as many of her fellow Armenians, can no longer trust the Turks, who insist they are not to blame for the mass murders and deportations.

Although the First World War is now ended, for the Armenians, war and genocide continue on. Greece occupied the city of Smyrna at the end of the war,  but they are determined to keep Smyrna which was given to them in the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. The Turkish National Army however wanted to establish a new country. They fought the Greeks, who ultimately lost in what was called the Greco-Turkish War.

The lower part of the city where Veron lived was Christian while the upper part was occupied by the Turks. But for Veron and her fellow Armenians, it means only more suffering. When the Greeks lose the war and the Armenians are driven literally to the sea by the Turkish army of Kemal Ataturk, Veron realizes her only chance at life will be to flee to Greece and the European continent. After arriving in Greece, Veron finds an unexpected offer that promises freedom, safety, and a future.

Discussion

The Road from Home tells the story of the author's mother's experience during the Armenian genocide. Told in Veron Dumehjian's voice, The Road from Home is a sanitized version of the 20th century's first genocide, the horribly successful attempt by the Ottoman Turks to eradicate all Armenians living in Turkey. Veron was the only survivor of her immediate family.

Despite the fact that this event, the genocide of Armenian Christians, is told from the viewpoint of a young girl with her innocent understanding, takes away none of the horror and repulsion at what happened. At times Veron's recounting is simple but in tune with how a young, innocent girl may well have barely understood the events happening around her. Kherdian does an excellent job of portraying the immense fortitude, courage, and perseverance of his mother, Veron, as she struggled to survival in a brutal time, while coping with the loss of so many of her family.

David Kherdian spends some time telling readers about what his mother's life was like in Azizya before the deportation and genocide. Before life is a mostly peaceful co-existence between Turks and Armenians, despite the relatively recent mass murders. The Armenians were generally well educated and cultured and contributed greatly to society in the Ottoman Empire. There are some lovely descriptions of wonderful family life that included extended family. All this was lost, through the unprovoked aggression of the Muslim Turks.

One drawback in this novel is that it was difficult to keep track of just how old Veron was as the years passed by. The chapters are labeled by years, following events chronologically as one would expect. It would also have helped if some of the events occurring in this part of the world during the time period, were explained to the reader in more depth - for example, the British blocking the ports and taking the grain to feed their troops. and the Greco-Turkish War. However, given that the narration is first person and that person is a young child, we experience these events as Veron herself likely would have - not really knowing much of what was happening.

There's an excellent author's note that provides some historical background for what happens in the book, as well as good map showing Veron's journeys through Turkey and ultimately to Greece. There are also two telling quotes at the front of the book, one of which indicates that, despite Turkey's refusal to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Turks knew exactly what they were about to undertake in 1915. The fact that the international community chose to ignore the genocide and that the world collectively has a short memory for such things, later on convinced Hitler that likely no one would help the Jews should they be targeted for mass murder. He was mostly right.

This is an excellent biography that is well worth reading by those interested in the 20th century but also recommended for all of us. "Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it."

Book Details:
The Road From Home by David Kherdian
New York: Greenwillow Books         1979
238pp.

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

"In any case, the short answer to that first question--How do a million and a half people die with nobody knowing? --is really very simple. You kill them in the middle of nowhere."

The Sandcastle Girls is a tale of two stories, separated by almost one hundred years. The present is narrated by Laura Petrosian, a novelist living in New York with her husband and two children. From Laura we learn about her life as a half-Armenian American raised in the eastern United States.We also learn about her family's history one that has a connection to the Armenian genocide of 1915. That connection dates back to Laura's American grandmother, Elizabeth Endicott and her Armenian-born grandfather, Armen Petrosian. Although Laura doesn't mention them by name at first, we come to know that this is Elizabeth and Armen, whose story, set in Armenia of 1915, will be related alternately with that of Laura's current narrative.

Laura becomes interested in her family history in her first year of college while writing for the student newspaper. She is sent on assignment to explore the Armenian Library and Museum of America in Watertown, Massachusetts and to write about a resolution by the US House of Representatives to declare the 1915 Armenian slaughter a genocide. There she encounters a photograph that is both puzzling and haunting. Life goes on and Laura never really follows up on the picture. However, just before Mother's Day, when she is forty-four years old, an old college friend calls Laura to tell her that there is "an old picture of her grandmother in The Boston Globe". Thinking she will see a picture of her grandmother, Elizabeth Endicott, instead it is the same photograph she saw years ago in college. However, this time the photograph has a caption identifying a woman with the last name of Petrosian, who carried her dead infant for days on a march from Harput to Aleppo.

Laura's grandparents rarely spoke to her about the First World War and the Armenian genocide. Not knowing who this woman is, Laura decides to travel to Boston to attend the showing of the photographs at Harvard's Peabody Museum and then travel again to the Watertown Museum where, she has learned, her grandmother's letters and diaries and the reports she wrote for the "Friends of Armenia" are held in the archives. Besides the photograph of a young woman bearing the same last name as Laura's family, Laura remembers how her father spoke about his parents moodiness, especially his mother's moroseness.

Interspersed with Laura's narrative about investigating into her grandparents past and the woman with the same last name, is the story of Elizabeth Endicott and Armen Petrosian. This narrative, set in 1915, is provided by twenty-one year old Elizabeth, a graduate from Mount Holyoke College in Boston. But there are also other narrators from this time as well; Armen Petrosian, an Armenian engineer who has lost his wife, Karine, and their 12 month old daughter in what is becoming a genocide, and also by Nevart and Hartoun, Armenian refugees, and by two German engineers.

Elizabeth and her father,Silas Endicott, a banker, are in Aleppo as representatives of Friends of Armenia organization. Elizabeth came to Aleppo because she felt this would be a meaningful way to finish off her studies at Mount Holyoke. There they are horrified to see refugees, women and children, who have arrived from the desert, naked, emaciated, starving and dying. The American Consul, Ryan Martin tells them that there were at least one thousand before they left Zeitun or Adana, but many have been crucified, tortured and murdered on the march to Aleppo.

In the town square at Aleppo, Elizabeth and her father meet German engineers who are photographing the refugees in order to document what is happening. Although Germany is an ally of Turkey, they disagree with what is happening and hope to show the world the fate of the Armenians. With them is a young Armenian engineer, Armen. Armen had attended Euphrates College in Harput but escaped with his two brothers, Garo and Hratch into the hills around Van, a beautiful city of 50,000 people, half of whom were Armenian. Garo is possibly with the Russians while Hratch is dead. Armen had a young wife, Karine and a young daughter, both of whom he now believes have perished.

Armen and Elizabeth are instantly attracted to one another and begin to meet daily, talking and going for walks. When they start to become physically close, Armen decides to leave for Egypt where he plans to meet up with the British and enlist. He leaves abruptly and Elizabeth and her father continue trying to help the refugees both in Aleppo and also those sent to camps in the desert. But Armen and Elizabeth's meeting will have consequences well into the future.

Discussion

The Sandcastle Girls is a timely novel about the Armenian Genocide that occurred in 1915. The author, Chris Bohjalian has a connection to the Armenian Genocide as his paternal Armenian grandparents were survivors of the genocide. The novel incorporates the technique of a story within a story, told in two narratives, that of an American writer, Laura Petrosian and her grandmother, Elizabeth Endicott-Petrosian. Bohjalian gradually weaves both stories together, telling us what happens to Elizabeth and Armen and how their story and the mysterious woman in the photograph is connected to Laura's family. It is a story of profound tragedy and terrible loss that reaches into the future to touch Laura. It is also a story of family secrets, too painful to have been broached therefore history not passed on.

Laura's narrative besides providing a storyline also serves to instruct the reader about the Armenian genocide, in a matter of fact, but in-depth manner. As such Laura's perspective tends to reinforce what her grandmother and great-grandfather saw in Aleppo in 1915. Laura informs readers about the 1908 revolution in Turkey, where Talat Pasha seized power and masterminded the genocide of the Armenian Christians; how the Turks systematically descended upon the Armenians, disarming them, rounding up the men, massacring them and then deporting the women and children; how the world refused to believe what was happening; how the Germans were complicit in the genocide. It's a tragedy that the world still seems loathe to recognize, despite the 100th anniversary which will be in 2015. Bohjalian's novel is well researched, well written, and definitely gripping to the very end. There is some sexual content, but the overall story and especially the subject matter is too important to be missed. 

Book Details:
The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian
New York: Doubleday      2012
293 pp.