Omega Farm

By: Martha McPhee

Many Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the ARC of this book! I am reviewing this book as part of the Scribner Influencer program.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In March 2020, Martha McPhee, her husband, and their two almost-grown children set out for her childhood home in New Jersey, where she finds herself grappling simultaneously with a mother slipping into severe dementia and a house that’s been neglected of late. As Martha works to manage her mother’s care and the sprawling, ramshackle property—a broken septic system, invasive bamboo, dying ash trees—she is pulled back into her childhood, almost against her will.

Martha grew up at Omega Farm with her four sisters, five stepsiblings, mother, and stepfather, in a house filled with art, people, and the kind of chaos that was sometimes benevolent, sometimes more sinister. Caring for her mother and her children, struggling to mend the forest, the past relentlessly asserts itself—even as Martha’s mother, the person she might share her memories with or even try to hold to account, no longer knows who Martha is.

My Review

When you’re stuck in a farm house (or any house) during the lockdown of the 2020 pandemic, it’s easy to get lost back in time, and find yourself deep in your present. At the heart of this memoir is a daughter’s love of her mother and her desire to bring her family together under one roof. What she comes to learn is that while looking back is possible, physically going back is not. It was great to read McPhee’s determination with the bamboo and the forest, including all of the details that McPhee learned. McPhee’s openness and vulnerability regarding the abuse that she endured at the hands of her stepfather was a tough read but much appreciated as a reader. It shows that as an author, she trusts her readers. Overall, this was such a beautiful book.

This will be released on September 12, 2023. Get your copy here.