A Little Bit of Land by Jessica Gigot (review)

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• A Little Bit of Land by Jessica Gigot
• Tagen Towsley Baker

Jessica Gigot, A Little Bit of Land. Corvallis: Oregon State UP, 2022. 150 pp. Paper $22.95; e-book, $11.99.

"Love comes in many forms, and I realized I was longing for a place more than a person," Jessica Gigot writes in her meaningful A Little Bit of Land (106). Recounting her journey to becoming a farmer, Gigot blends family history, the works of Wendell Berry and other authors who inspire her writing, personal narrative, and observations of place that transport the reader into the rich landscape and rural life of the Pacific Northwest.

Her experiences with intense physical work as an intern and later as a farmer help her learn how to navigate each environment and establish a relationship with the land. Discovering the farm as place, Gigot's work becomes healing as the varied landscapes offer solace and teaching experiences that help her gain new perspectives on her life and the place she resides. Sharing stories from her childhood, her parents' divorce, and a subsequent relationship trauma she experienced as a young adult, Gigot recounts how the land helped her [End Page 185] process grief, understand the many facets of love, and how living close to the earth and animals provides connection and comfort.

Gigot observes the visceral connections to farming the land, traditional foods, and spirituality as she notes, "Food is personal, spiritual, and essential to identity and place" (131). Touching on her own journey as a scientist in academia, a farmer, and a teacher at Northwest Indian College, Gigot is honest in her accounts of the complex and exploitative nature of agribusiness. As she established rapport with the Swinomish people she gained a greater understanding of the importance of traditional knowledge as well as working in harmony to grow food for the wellbeing of the land, family, and community.

The content of many of Gigot's passages initiates a conversation with the reader on the intricate relationship and history of chemical applications in farming and agricultural science. Gigot weaves together elements of her experiences as a researcher, applied, practical knowledge of place-based farming, and the emergence of organic farming in the early 2000s. Blending these elements of narrative, Gigot engages the reader in a dialog of the future of agriculture and how these varied approaches shape farming. Her storytelling is vivid, and her honesty is gripping. Her variable approach to agriculture and the cultural importance of growing and eating food leave the reader with a profound sense of place as well as complex questions on how identity is associated with the various landscapes encountered throughout life.

The progression of chapters informs the book's larger themes of how the farm as place is centered in loss, grief, comfort, imperfection, and the multifaceted questions associated with identity. There is no narrative that suggests a clear resolution to the process of healing or the future of farming in our country. However, Gigot leaves the reader with the question of what we have lost that the previous generations that came before us gained, "the lost lineage of matriarchal knowledge" (99). In her last chapter Gigot states: "Nothing is more important than taking care of where you live and the people in your life, and the patriarchal way we try to make nature perform and produce for us will never succeed. There has always been a better way" (138). [End Page 186]

Tagen Towsley Baker Utah State University Copyright © 2024 Western Literature Association ...