Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2019
352 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
"They were inescapable, the tensions of the adult world--the fraught and febrile aura that surrounded Ishtar and those in her orbit, that whined and creaked like a wire pulled too tight."
It is the winter of 1985. Hope Farm sticks out of the ragged landscape like a decaying tooth, its weatherboard walls sagging into the undergrowth. Silver's mother, Ishtar, has fallen for the charismatic Miller, and the three of them have moved to the rural hippie commune to make a new start.
At Hope, Silver finds unexpected friendship and, at last, a place to call home. But it is also here that, at just thirteen, she is thrust into an unrelenting adult world―and the walls begin to come tumbling down, with deadly consequences.
"[A]n Australian cousin of T.C. Boyle's Drop City, Lauren Groff's Arcadia, and other novels about the failures of communal living...The aching loneliness of almost every character is subtly and movingly depicted as generations of weak parenting and secrecy take their toll." - Kirkus Reviews
"In exploring what happens to the love between a parent and child when the rules of that relationship dissolve, and where the freedoms overwhelm, Frew exposes the raw tenderness of loving but not being loved in return." - The Guardian (UK)
"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
"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
"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 mornings, hear the birds warbling and smell the stale dope smoke. Hope Farm is elegant, tender and very wise." - Chris Womersley
This information about Hope Farm was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Peggy Frew's debut novel, House of Sticks, won the 2010 Victorian Premier's Literary Award. She is also a member of the critically acclaimed and award-winning Melbourne band Art of Fighting.
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