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Hope Farm (Peggy Frew, Scribe)

Writer and musician Peggy Frew continues to explore the darker side of familial responsibility in her second novel, Hope Farm, which follows 2011’s House of Sticks. In the vein of Romy Ash’s Floundering, Hope Farm is a slow-moving, largely atmospheric novel told from the clear-eyed perspective of Silver, a child forced into adulthood too soon. Unable to settle down, Silver’s mother Ishtar leads them to Hope Farm or ‘Dope Farm’ as the locals sneeringly call it. Silver watches from the sidelines as her mother succumbs to the rural commune’s culture of risky casual sex and drug-taking. But it is Ishtar’s attraction to domineering men that is most damaging, causing a tragic rift between mother and daughter. This book contains some very beautiful passages; there’s a lyrical quality to Frew’s writing and, like the music from her Melbourne band Art of Fighting, the tone manages to be warm, gentle and sad all at once. Ultimately, the book’s bifurcated structure prevents it from truly soaring. The constant switching between Silver’s narration and excerpts from Ishtar’s diaries creates some clunky transitions. While the wise-beyond-her-years Silver grabs the reader fully, her mother’s backstory is less convincingly rendered.

Emily Laidlaw is a Melbourne-based freelance writer and editor

 

Category: Reviews