Hope Farm in Aussie Readers

Sep 24, 2015 Michael Livingston rated it really liked it

Somewhat strangely, this is the third book I've read this year narrated by a kid who grew up in some sort of communal hippie arrangement (after Arcadia and The World Without Us). I'm not sure what's prompted this spate of similarly themed books, but Peggy Frew has managed to bring something valuable to this odd little niche. Frew writes beautifully, with a real knack for describing the awkwardness of adolescence and the frustrating love within families. The story is well crafted, and the result ...more

22 likes · Like · see review

Mar 20, 2016 Bree T rated it really liked it

Shelves: australian, literary, aww2016, stella2016

This year I made a commitment to read the six books shortlisted for the Stella Prize, which recognises writing by Australian female authors. I’d already read one last year (The Natural Way Of Things by Charlotte Wood) so that left me five to read. To help motivate me for this I signed up for the Stella bookclub where participants read one book a week to complete the shortlist before the winner is announced. There’s a Twitter chat each Monday night between 8-9pm where those who have read the book This year I made a commitment to read the six books shortlisted for the Stella Prize, which recognises writing by Australian female authors. I’d already read one last year (The Natural Way Of Things by Charlotte Wood) so that left me five to read. To help motivate me for this I signed up for the Stella bookclub where participants read one book a week to complete the shortlist before the winner is announced. There’s a Twitter chat each Monday night between 8-9pm where those who have read the book can join a hosted/led discussion. Hope Farm is the second of the five books I need to read to complete the shortlist and my favourite so far.

It’s the story of Silver, who at 13 is moving yet again with her single mother Ishtar. Silver’s life seems to be have been a kaleidoscope of sharehouses and commune-type things but they never seem to stay in one place for long. Ishtar meets Miller, a man with ideals to live sustainably and self-sufficiently on Hope Farm, located somewhere in Victoria’s Gippsland area. Silver and her mother travel two days by train to get there, arriving before Miller to a place that doesn’t particularly look like a utopia. There are several inhabitants, most of whom work at a nearby powdered milk factory in order to support the farm.

In theory, Hope Farm sounds awesome. I have to admit, there’s something so very attractive about the idea of being mostly self-sufficient – growing your own food, having a few animals to use for protein or barter. But the reality of these places is nearly always very different – it’s poverty, drugs, people who don’t know what they’re doing and blurred lines. Silver sees a lot, experiences a lot, things that she should probably be protected from. The narrative is almost all Silver’s which at first made me devote my sympathies and loyalties almost exclusively to her. But interspersed are diary entries, which after a couple become obvious that they’re written by Ishtar. They shed some light on her early decisions, what she sacrificed and the choices she made in order to be able to gain what she wanted. Whilst I didn’t always agree with Ishtar, the choices she made and how she was raising Silver, I did find myself coming to slowly admire her for her strength and determination. I think that she made a lot of those choices for the right reasons, she was searching for something but every time it looked like she found it, really what she’d found was just another form of oppression and the feeling of being stuck.

This book is set in the 1980’s, not that long ago in broad terms but there are attitudes and beliefs that have evolved significantly in many ways since then. Ishtar was only a teenager when she fell pregnant and in Queensland in the 1980’s with a religious mother, there were very few options that were open to her and the desperation that she felt was really quite heartbreaking. The more diary entries I read from Ishtar, the more of them I wanted to read – I felt as though her story was really only just touched on, those sparse entries just giving the reader enough to flesh out the rest in their imaginations. It’s impossible for that youthful idealism Ishtar had to remain untainted as she moves on again and again. It definitely affects her relationship with Silver and as the pattern continues, it also clearly affects the way that Silver sees her mother.

I have a bad record with prize winners – I almost never love the winner and sometimes I don’t even like or get any of the books chosen for a shortlist! I still keep trying though because reading shortlists helps me broaden my reading and get me out of my comfort zone a bit. I am happy to say that the two I’ve read so far from the shortlist for the bookclub have both been enjoyable, but this one is my favourite. I connected really strongly with Silver and the landscape as well. It’s set in a different part of Victoria to where I live but I could imagine what it would be like those cold winter nights with no heating, wearing pretty much every piece of clothing you own to stay warm. I lived rurally when I was younger too and my brother and I often explored the local area the way that Silver and her neighbour Ian explore the bush and the abandoned mineshafts. The novel built very well towards the climax, constructing a simmering atmosphere on the farm that was bound to boil over.

Hope Farm is beautifully written – I enjoyed it before we discussed it but that conversation only helped me appreciate it more. I think were it to win, it’d be a worthy choice. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Jun 07, 2018 Scribe Publications added it

Shelves: contemporary, fiction, australian-fiction, australian-literature, australian, literary, award-winning

Peggy Frew is an amazing writer and Hope Farm is a great novel that captures the pleasures and difficulties of being both a parent and of being a child. The complex story of Silver and Ishtar and their fraught relationship is beautifully written, acutely observed and, best of all, completely absorbing. I could almost feel the crisp Gippsland mornings, hear the birds warbling and smell the stale dope smoke. Hope Farm is elegant, tender and very wise.
Chris Womersley, Award-Winning Author of Cairo Peggy Frew is an amazing writer and Hope Farm is a great novel that captures the pleasures and difficulties of being both a parent and of being a child. The complex story of Silver and Ishtar and their fraught relationship is beautifully written, acutely observed and, best of all, completely absorbing. I could almost feel the crisp Gippsland mornings, hear the birds warbling and smell the stale dope smoke. Hope Farm is elegant, tender and very wise.
Chris Womersley, Award-Winning Author of Cairo and Bereft

[E]legiac, storied … aligns itself with other novels in which children — out of rashness, anger or even ignorance — act out to terrible consequences. As with Briony in Ian McEwan’s Atonemen or Leo in L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between, these decisions are usually compounded by circumstance … Frew does not want to pass judgment though. She understands that the sadness of childhood is to grow up in circumstances over which you have little or no control.
Jessica AU, Sydney Morning Herald

Peggy Frew’s novel, Hope Farm, tells an original tale, drawing into the body of Australian literary fiction, a world between the cracks. Peggy’s voice is contemporary, her observations sharp and sensitive. Hope Farm describes the cycle of loss and damage when there are no boundaries to protect us.
Sofie Laguna, Author of The Eye of the Sheep, 2015 Miles Franklin Literary Award Winner

Frew’s deceptively slow-burn tale of a teenage girl — adrift, bewildered, seeking solidity — moves inexorably to its climax, laying bare a certain darkness at the heart of the alternative lifestyle. But it's the tale of a survivor, too.
Luke Davies, Award-Winning Author of Candy

At this point it could be too early to call it, but I’m thinking this could end up on my top 10 books of the year list … Beautifully written, difficult to put down, hard not to feel the ache.
Geelong Advertiser

In its exploration of maternal, sexual, unrequited and platonic relationships, Hope Farm is a finely calibrated study of love, loss and belonging.
Thuy On, Sunday Age

[An] assured exploration of that awkward moment between childhood and the teenage years [as well as a] devastating critique of the treatment of unwed mothers in the ’70s.
Margot Lloyd, Adelaide Advertiser

Frew is a gifted writer, evidenced here by finely balanced observations and atmospheric description … Silver is poised at the beginning of adult understanding and Frew handles the challenge with deftness. Silver’s insight and compassion are juxtaposed with naivety and the idealistic force of her first crushes.
Ed Wright, Weekend Australian

Absorbing ... A beautifully-told story of courage and survival, Hope Farm is about growing up, belonging, and long-kept secrets.
Carys Bray, Author of A Song for Issy Bradley

Reading [Hope Farm] made me feel as though I’d lived it. So darn clever.
Clare Bowditch

Frew’s second novel is an Australian cousin of T.C. Boyle’s Drop City, Lauren Groff’s Arcadia, and other novels about the failures of communal living, with additional connections to Esther Freud’s Hideous Kinky and Ian McEwan’s Atonement.
Kirkus Reviews ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Sep 21, 2015 Joanie rated it really liked it

Shelves: aus, survival, bullying

Hope Farm is a beautifully written book about the complex relationship of a mother and a daughter. But it is so much more than just this relationship. It deals with communes, ashrams, the hippie culture, friendship, jealousy, survival and bullying.

The characters in this book are well rounded, interesting, believable and in some cases, disturbing.
The daughter is the main protagonist; wonderfully portrayed with spot on feelings and thoughts of a 13 year old girl desperately wanting stability in he ...more

Like · see review