The Farm by Hector Abad (Book Review)

The Farm
By Hector Abad
Translated by Anne McLean
Published by Archipelago Books, 2018
Price: $20

The house and farmlands of La Oculta in the Antoquia region of Colombia has been in the possession of the Angel family for almost 200 years. It's been hard work holding on to it through the dissolution of the utopian community it was once a part of, parceling of its once vast lands through generations, and then wars between drug dealers and soldiers from the Left and Right. Now it has become simply a matter of economics as to whether La Oculta will remain in family hands. The matriarch of the family, Anita, has been subsidizing the care and maintenance of the estate with her own money and that of her three children: Antonio, Pilar, and Eva. No one of these four characters has enough resources on their own to take care of it. They have to pool their money together. But as the novel opens, the mom has passed away, leaving the fate of La Oculta uncertain.

One thing to clear up, when I say three children, I do not mean they are YOUNG. The three siblings are all in their late 50s or early 60s and are technically senior citizens. They have their own lives and families, and,  except for Pilar, do not live at La Oculta. Antonio, the son, lives in New York with his longtime boyfriend and only visits on holidays. Eva has zero interest in the land and really only comes to it to see her family.

That's really the crux of the problem in this book. You have Pilar who has practically become the new owner of La Oculta and has taken on the role of their dead mother. She wants to to hang on to the land come hell or high water. Antonio loves the land and the house and has even devoted most of his life to writing about its history and his ancestors. But he lives so far away and is he willing to give up his life in America to come home for good? Eva is the complete polar opposite of the other two. She has no interest in the past of  her family or La Oculta. She dwells completely in the present. If it was up to her, she would sell it all and be done with it.

I really enjoyed this book. Because Antonio is writing a history, the reader gets a lot of insight not only into the fictional family that is the subject of the book, but also a primer in Colombian history. There are at times three running storylines. The present lives of the siblings, flashbacks to their personal histories, and also Antonio's recounting of their ancestors which also gradually takes on a fictional mode instead of recounting facts. I thought it was great how Abad was able to juggle these different perspectives. It never got confusing because each chapter is titled by the name of one of the kids so you always know who is speaking, who is perceiving.

Abad did a really good job of introducing his world to a Colombian illiterate like me. I never felt culturally lost or confused. Even though the setting was a country I know very little about, the writing was so good that I could see it visually and understand the culture emotionally. Anne McLean's translation is also probably a big part of this as well. I felt at home in Antioquia, in La Oculta. I felt at home with the characters. And just because this book is very realistic, do not think that it is barren of some very beautiful language.

I would definitely read another work by this author.

My Grade: B+