Hi everyone!
Tom Rob Smith's latest novel "The Farm" is sure to be one of the most talked about books of the summer reading season. It's unlike any other thriller I've read, hinging as it does upon the question of the reliability of the narrator. "The Farm" is lean, taut, and keeps you guessing until the last page.
The story is told from the perspective of two narrators: Daniel, a twenty-something Londoner who has spent most of his adult life hiding from his parents the fact that he is gay, which has caused an estrangement of sorts between him and them; and Tilde, Daniel's sixty-something mother who returns to London from Sweden to enlist her son in her fight to prove that she hasn't been imagining the ominous events she believes have been taking place in and the around the farm in Sweden where she and Daniel's father, Chris, have decided to spend their retirement.
Tilde, who had been born and raised in Sweden, hadn't been back to her motherland in fifty years. The reasons for her departure fifty years previous are murky and become murkier still as she relates to Daniel the horrific circumstances that prompted her most recent flight.
Without giving too much away, Tilde's narrative involves a rather sinister neighbor named Hakkan who has his eye on Tilde and Chris's farm; a beautiful and mysterious sixteen year-old black girl named Mia, Hakkan's adopted daughter; a shed with a secretive padlocked back room; a lecherous mayor; trolls; an island where suspected deviant behavior takes place; an unresolved fifty year-old mystery; xenophobia; and lots and lots of snow.
Like Daniel, to whom his mother rather desperately recounts her story, we as the reader are never quite sure what is fact and what is fiction. We want to believe Tilde's tale because she is such a sympathetic character, but as the novel progresses we're left increasingly unsure. And when Daniel resolves to corroborate or refute his mother's story, we hope the facts bear out as Tilde has described them because otherwise her situation is all the more heartbreaking.
I loved this book and have to thank my own mother for recommending it to me. You'll want to devour it in one or two sittings. What makes it so compelling is the way in which Mr. Smith draws you into the twin narratives. Both Daniel and Tilde are sympathetic. Daniel is caught between loyalty to both of his parents -- according to Tilde's account, his father Chris doesn't come off at all well -- while Tilde is so adamantly convinced of her own truth that you hope it is true and that she's not insane as almost everyone would have her believe.
My only criticisms comes toward the end. A major transition between two narrative perspectives is somewhat jarring and left me wondering whether a decision had been made to cut the text for length. But we soon get our bearings again as Daniel launches his own investigation. While I found the final scene really rather moving I did feel that the story ties up a little too neatly, though to the author's credit we are not sure what happens after the final page.
All in all, "The Farm" is a grand entertainment and will have you guessing until the end.
Check out the author's web site for a rather effective book trailer and links to his previous titles, including the award-winning Child 44, the film version of which is coming soon to a theatre near you.
http://tomrobsmith.com
"The Farm" was released earlier this year in the UK and will be published here in the U.S. by Grand Central in June.
No comments:
Post a Comment