Go as a River: A Novel

The Nash family’s “miracle” peaches represent Victoria’s livelihood and family legacy, thereby symbolizing resilience. Victoria is a third-generation farmer; her grandfather, Hollis Henry Nash, starts the first and only peach farm in the Gunnison area, passing down the family secrets of growing peaches in a cold climate from generation to generation. The peaches are unique because of the unusually cold climate in the fall, for “the cold nights and warm days of early autumn on Colorado’s western slope […] sweetens the fruit sugar” (63). The biological fragility of the peaches signifies the precious nature of life, which persists even amidst harsh and dangerous conditions. The lush sensory descriptions of the peaches emphasize the universal delight of living. For Victoria, the delight of life is her love for Wil, and the imagery of peaches is mingled suggestively with the sensual image of kissing, for Victoria describes “how he’d watched me bite into a fat peach, juice dripping down my forearm and off my bare elbow; how my mouth glistened, as if inviting him to press his lips against mine” (64).

In addition to her pleasures, Victoria’s losses are also conveyed through the imagery of the peaches. For example, she views the despair of the car accident that suddenly killed her mother, aunt, and cousin as the harsh pulling of unripened fruit, stating, “God will pluck your mother, your cousin, your aunt from this earth like peaches pulled from the branch too soon” (51).