The Slow Farm

by Tarn Wilson

In this coming-of-age memoir, Tarn Wilson explores the gifts and burdens of a counterculture childhood. In the early 1970s, Wilson’s hippie parents packed the family into a converted school bus with “Suck Nixon” painted on the side and aimed for the Canadian wilderness. They planned to raise their two young children close to the earth and free of shallow middle class values. When they settle on a remote island in British Columbia, their idealism smacks up against reality and threatens to tear apart the family.
Between each short lyric chapter, Wilson incorporates “artifacts” that illuminate the cultural forces shaping her parents’ decisions, such as letters, recipes, photographs, timelines, newspaper clippings, and provocative excerpts from A Radical Approach to Child Rearing.
With both empathy and clear-eyed honesty, Wilson deconstructs the simplified narratives of the counterculture movement by sharing the story of one young, eager, flawed family’s efforts to live the ideal. The book celebrates the power of the natural world, invites us to ask questions about how we raise children, and takes us on a journey of forgiveness. Ultimately, Wilson’s story, although unusual, is all of the path “from the world as we wish it were to the one that exists,” with all its beauty and imperfections.
Stanford Magazine says, “Tales of her youthful fits and starts could spark nostalgia even in those who didn’t grow up romping around in the words with near complete freedom.”
Lia Purpura, award-winning poet and essayist, writes that Wilson “reconstructs the powerful atmosphere of a past era, its magic, contentment and freedom, its restrictions and losses.”
The genre-defining essayist Judith Kitchen says, “Tarn Wilson deftly turns memoir into an interactive project.” Brenda Miller, co-author of the bestselling guide to creative nonfiction Tell It Slant , praises “a textured memoir of childhood that captures the zeitgeist of the 60s . . .”

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

380 pages, Paperback

First published February 18, 2014

About the author

Tarn Wilson is the author of three books: the award-winning memoir-in-essays In Praise of Inadequate Gifts (Wandering Aengus Press, 2022); the forthcoming 5-Minute Daily Writing Prompts: 501 Prompts to Unleash Your Creativity and Inspire You to Write (Rockridge Press, 2022), and the memoir The Slow Farm (Ovenbird Books: Judith Kitchen Selects, 2014). Her personal essays have been published in numerous journals, including Brevity, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, River Teeth, Ruminate, and The Sun. She is a graduate of the Rainier Writing Workshop and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where she is a high school teacher.

Reviews

[Left Coast Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A better-than-average memoir about the author's childhood in rural Canada. (Actress Meg Tilly grew up in very similar circumstances on the same island, and I was hoping for some evidence that the two met one another as children, but that was not included in either book.) I enjoyed this book much more than Tilly's, for it sense of wonder, the appreciation Wilson had for her surroundings and the recognition, later in life, that it really was pretty special. She recognized that her tale was worth telling and bravely set forth and told it.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

True confession: I was a hippie parent. So I was fascinated by Tarn Wilson's recalling her childhood as she was raised by two hippie parents on an island in Canada.

Though I raised my kids in rural California, the similarities to Tarn's upbringing in rural Canada are strong. It was part pain (as childhood is), part naked idyll. She's recalling the time as a child; I'm viewing her story as a parent. She's honest about the flaws of her upbringing but also remarkably forgiving of her parents. Maybe one of the virtues we can give our children is the ability to judge, then forgive. Give them roots. And wings.

Oh how I enjoyed - and envied - her days running free on the sand and among the driftwood of Pocahontas Bay. Her mother kneading bread that feels like a baby's bum. Her dad working hard - and it is hard work, indeed - to live the simple life. And ultimately, not so simple. Entering school in town and coming up against the cold truth that most people live by different rules.

Tarn got her roots. Later, she grew wings.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had Tarn Wilson as a high school English teacher, and she was one of the nicest people I've ever met. She is the kind of person who's life story you desperately want to know about but refrains from talking about it beyond curiosity-increasing details. So I was thrilled to finally learn a little more about her past and the ambiance from which she was raised. She writes in a very unique and delectable style, and her 'artifacts' were pure gold. Now I just wish she wrote about more than two years of her life here!

[Kurt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met Tarn at a dinner party last week and thoroughly enjoyed her book.

[Melinda Maxwell-Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ms. Tarn's eloquent telling of her early life in contact with the earth, but not as in contact with the adults who were raising her and her sister, gives a rare view into the wave of "back to the earth" movement of the late '60's - early '70's in North America. I'm so grateful to have read her memoir peppered with headlines, historical happenings, and familial influences that brought the family to the outskirts of civilization, and to the inner realms of exploration of human nature. Highly recommend this book!

[jimtown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this memoir of a child's few years of being raised in an alternative lifestyle by her anti-establishment parents. Growing up free of rules or restraints, Tarn and her younger sister, Rima had some wonderful adventures in the woods and streams around their house after their young parents relocated them from Colorado to a remote island in Canada. They were both very young at the time, five and three and Tarn did an amazing job collecting scraps and recollecting the feel of living with hippie parents.

It did not last long but left and indelible impression on young Tarn. She was a gentle, thoughtful child who felt things deeply. The time spent on Pocahontas Bay was both wonderful and scary. When people become parents so young, they do not yet know fear and these children ran so free, naked at times and learned to set their own limits.

When their mother Janet has had enough and is lonely, she takes the girls with her to the city. The noise and bustle of city living is a huge adjustment for Tarn. She also struggles with her parents separation and her love for her father who just couldn't see things any other way but his. A joy to read.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so glad I discovered this deep, thoughtful, moving memoir, and I want others to discover it too. Read this book! Maybe especially if you are old enough to have been a hippie or loved a hippie--the genuine back-to-the-earth type from the 70s, then this book will remind you of what was beautiful and what was impossible about those times, that way of living. If you know nothing about those times, those values, maybe especially if you are too young to have known, then you should read this book , for a glimpse into a kind of Eden that contained--maybe like all Edens--the seeds of its own destruction. Tarn Wilson, four years old when she entered that Eden and six when she left, tells her story and her parents' stories with compassion, intelligence, and grace. "My childhood," she says, "was a gift. My childhood was a challenge." Both things are certainly true for many of us, but I have not seen, until now, a memoir that renders so compellingly, so lovingly, and so dispassionately that paradox, for the benefit of everyone who reads it.

[Judith Shadford · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I had known, without knowing Tarn Wilson, that the story transpired mostly on Texada Island, I would have snatched it and run to the cash register. To have Tarn's childhood so carefully, beautifully framed, on Texada is a gift to be cherished for a long long time. And then that Judith Kitchen and Ovenbird Books produced it...well, you know. That priceless thing.
Her artifacts of construction--they really work, because, for me, it is a complete story, despite the brevity of individual memories. That's how our lives are put together--a glance of light on a daffodil, a tone of voice, with the loss of magic and rise of dissolutions, yet finding home, changed forever, but home.
Slow Farm and Pocohantas Bay are now real places in my imagination, augmented with my own couple days anchored out in Sturt Bay. Her skill at gently revealing her complex of memories evoked and cleansed my own memories of those places.
And she's a beautiful writer.

[D. Thrush · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written series of anecdotal memories of a hippie childhood in Canada. At times it sounds idyllic though reality often clashes with their world. Tarn and her younger sister, Rima are raised with no rules. There are few toys and no TV and they have to use their imaginations to amuse themselves. They have fun roaming and exploring. It’s interesting to read things from a child’s perspective. Tarn does a great job of bringing this world alive and you feel like you’re there with her. Though not much happens, she experiences a lot. She observes the adults around her and her parent’s relationship. After a while, Tarn begins to yearn for a normal childhood and her mother tires of the hardships. I like that she visited years later and lets us know how everyone ended up, although I would’ve liked to hear more about her mother in later years and see more pictures. This is a wistful and sad and dreamy story.

[J. A. Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

One woman's memoir on her life being raised by two hippies. While it seemed to me that both of her parents were fairly intelligent, their lifestyle was interesting. Ms. Wilson and her family lived in a communal setting for a time. She and her sister were allowed to run free without clothing often, and it seemed went dirty frequently. Her father seemed to lack direction and drive. When her parents finally split, I was glad her mother got a job and was able to provide a safer, more structured life. I grew up in this era and it was not uncommon for people to choose this lifestyle. While many things in Tarn's childhood sounded wonderful, a farm atmosphere with plenty of time to explore nature and raise food and animals, it disturbed me when a male neighbor told them they shouldn't be naked.

[Steven Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book grew on me slowly which is part of its intention. Tarn Wilson builds the story of her life growing up with hippie parents in Canada in a series of small vignettes interspersed with documents from the time. The sections accrue power as they accumulate. We as readers experience her childhood as it happens so to speak. In the end a complete picture emerges of a family who attempted to create its own Eden only to find that the sorrows of the human predicament are not so easily avoided. Still there is much love and joy in this portrait as well as a family of truly memorable and in many ways admirable characters.

[Bruce Elisha]

I just couldn't put it down. Brilliant story integrating memoir with excerpts from writers who influenced the thinking of the times which gave a context for the experiences related. After hearing Tarn speak at the NonFiction Now conference that ended last night I stayed up half the night to finish it. Certainly there is pain and anxiety, and at times I felt myself re-experiencing my own repressed childhood anxiety as I read how Tarn assumed responsibility for many of her parent's problems - a line of childhood "reasoning" that I am very familiar with. Brutally honest and insightful, I couldn't wait to see how Tarn dealt with the pain she experienced. A wonderful read.

[Carl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the structure of this book that intersperses memoir episodes with factual and other material, I believe she called it evidence. The evidence provides useful information about the setting and about the philosophical approach of her hippy parents. I am amazed at the amount of very specific information and dialog that she is able to recall—in fact, I don't quite believe it all. And that is probably the biggest problem with this book; other than it is too long and really doesn't lead to much. I wish she had reflected more on what it meant to her and how it did or did not affect her future.

[Darlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

A captivating and realistic look into one family's walk for a time living as "hippies" and just how similar were their hopes and dreams for their country to those today who strive to make a difference. The simplicity of life does indeed provide an interesting perspective. A very individual experience.

[Madeline Barthelme · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hippie Life Reflections

This autobiography caught my attention immediately. Ms. Wilson's writing style brings you easily into her experiences, and I was able to picture her life very clearly.

I admire her honesty about her upbringing, and her eventual acceptance of the family she was part of. I was moved by her story, and admire her strength.

[Richda Mcnutt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A child's-eye view of living on Texada Island in the early 1970's. Interesting construction interspersed with photos and excerpts from social commentary of the times. For me, the most striking writing was the imagery that the author scatters throughout the book regarding her emotions and responses to the physical and familial environments.

[Tineke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this. Most enjoyable new-to-me book of 2021. Compulsively readable; very controlled writing.

I think the "obvious" chapter titles were a weakness but only because she need not have worried we needed them. Her writing is strong enough to convey her meaning without the hand holding.

I like this reminder that an indie-press-published memoir can stand up there with the big ones.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing story that touched me deeply. The writing is vivid, tangible, real. Even though Tarn's childhood was very different than mine, the stories and feelings are somehow familiar. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

[Jeff Scroggin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author presents a fun read about her experiences growing up with an eccentric mother and father who decide to drop out of society in the northwest. The scenes are very touching, sometimes amusing and sometimes melancholy.

[Cynthia Karpa McCarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book slowly because I didn't want it to end.

[Deanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

The short chapters showing key moments in the author’s childhood is a unique, relatable approach. Being raised by hippie parents was certainly both interesting and complicated.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily one of the best memoirs I’ve read. Wilson’s writing is sublime, and she is honest and unsparing in describing her unusual childhood growing up in the 1970s on an island in British Columbia. Highly recommended.

[Stan · Rating 1 out of 5]

no good

[Patti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating glimpse of the author's early life with her hippie parents.