Audiobook7 hours
Omega Farm: A Memoir
Written by Martha McPhee
Narrated by Tracy Thorne
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
*A New Yorker and Vogue Best Book of 2023*
“Compelling... [McPhee] positions herself neither as victim nor saint but as someone who, she says, only wants to be good.” —The Washington Post
A moving memoir from an award-winning novelist—a riveting account of her complicated, bohemian childhood and her return home to care for her ailing mother.
In March 2020, Martha McPhee, her husband, and their two 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 fallen into neglect. 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 swept back, unwillingly, into memories of her fraught, dysfunctional childhood.
In this masterful exploration of a complicated family legacy, McPhee “makes no effort to spare her own flaws even as she searches for the roots of her mature turmoil in the shortcomings of adults who failed in the fundamental task of protecting her younger self” (BookPage). Omega Farm is an “expansive” (New Yorker) testament to hope in the face of suffering, and a courageous tale about how returning home can offer a new way to understand the past.
“Compelling... [McPhee] positions herself neither as victim nor saint but as someone who, she says, only wants to be good.” —The Washington Post
A moving memoir from an award-winning novelist—a riveting account of her complicated, bohemian childhood and her return home to care for her ailing mother.
In March 2020, Martha McPhee, her husband, and their two 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 fallen into neglect. 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 swept back, unwillingly, into memories of her fraught, dysfunctional childhood.
In this masterful exploration of a complicated family legacy, McPhee “makes no effort to spare her own flaws even as she searches for the roots of her mature turmoil in the shortcomings of adults who failed in the fundamental task of protecting her younger self” (BookPage). Omega Farm is an “expansive” (New Yorker) testament to hope in the face of suffering, and a courageous tale about how returning home can offer a new way to understand the past.
Author
Martha McPhee
Martha McPhee is the author of the novels An Elegant Woman, Bright Angel Time, Gorgeous Lies, L’America, and Dear Money. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Gorgeous Lies was a finalist for the National Book Award. She teaches fiction at Hofstra University and lives in New York City.
Related to Omega Farm
Related audiobooks
Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pete and Alice in Maine: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWholly Unraveled: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ladysitting: My Year with Nana at the End of Her Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Managing Expectations: A Memoir in Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5EVERYTHING/NOTHING/SOMEONE: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Safe: A Memoir of Fatherhood, Foster Care, and the Risks We Take for Family Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Critic's Daughter: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women We Buried, Women We Burned: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew from It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5No One Crosses the Wolf: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fi: A Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEasy Beauty Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I've Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You've Been So Lucky Already: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stuff Mom Never Told You: The Feminist Past, Present, and Future Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnraveling Anne Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Heart that Works Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One Way Back: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Many Lives of Mama Love (Oprah's Book Club): A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Whiskey Tender: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reproduction: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloistered: My Years as a Nun Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grand: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devout: A Memoir of Doubt Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Through the Groves: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Personal Memoirs For You
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Woman in Me Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sociopath: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night: New translation by Marion Wiesel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: My Year of Psychedelics: Lessons on Better Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finding Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While Time Remains: A North Korean Girl's Search for Freedom in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Counting the Cost Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wishful Drinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pageboy: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5See You on the Way Down: Catch You on the Way Back Up! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yes Please Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Making It So: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: Built for This: The Quiet Strength of Powerlifting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love, Lucy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Taste: My Life Through Food Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Omega Farm
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The story is interesting which I enjoyed as a fellow "Jersey Girl". The author's Trump Derangement Syndrome was sprinkled throughout and added nothing to the story; it only strengthened the stereotype that NYC Leftist Professors rely on legacy media for their "news and facts". I was thankful for the fast-forward option to skim over her propaganda.
2 people found this helpful