The Year of the Farmer
Rosalie Ham Picador, $35 Reviewed by Siobhan Harvey
‘Thousands have lived without love,’’ the poet WH Auden wrote, ‘‘not one without water.’’ As we navigate through turbulent ecological times, water – the key to life – increasingly becomes our scarcest resource. Australian author Rosalie Ham brings this home to us in her new, darkly sardonic novel, The Year of the Farmer.
Ham’s previous book was that bestselling tale of secrets, Outback community and couture, The Dressmaker. The novel’s tongue-in-cheek exploration of rural vitality and coarseness is channelled into The Year of
the Farmer too. Here, the countryside, its peoples and practices are honoured and caricatured equally.
The author’s adoration of the pastoral, for instance, is symbolised by kind-hearted, submissive, agrarian protagonist Mitchell Bishop. Companioned by dog Tink, tireless in his work and commitment to his marriage, Mitch is guardian of a century-old family farm, Bishops Corner. But he’s also beset by water shortages which are crippling his land and livestock; by his shotgun wedding to narcissistic, vindictive, friendless Mandy; and by a secret, mutual passion for childhood sweetheart, Neralie. While Mitchell toils over his parched business, wife Mandy becomes the object of Ham’s mockery, her newsagent’s turned into a hub of gossip and machination.
Throw in Neralie’s return from selfimposed isolation in Sydney to take ownership of the town’s newly refurbished pub, and what Ham finely crafts for us is a character-driven, conflict-riven tale. The cast standout, of course, remains nasty, self-serving and paranoid Mandy. Credible to her incredible core, she’s a rich array of motivations and emotions, a realistic representation of those people we all know who egotistically backstab us while pouring faint praise upon our heads and/or telling the world they’re working tirelessly for the good of everyone while invisibly accruing power bases and gate-keeping opportunities to reward themselves and their allies. In Mandy, the powerful mundanity of those who are mean, nepotistic and vindictive becomes Ham’s piece-de-resistance.
If the complexities of human existence which radiate from Mandy’s brutality fire up what might have otherwise been an everyday story of thwarted small-town love, they also conflate and counterpoint the troubling real-life issue of water, its shortage and exploitation. The author uses this resource as a symbol for the disquieting political and economic issues which divide privilege and disempower the community. On the one hand, she places the few who control the community’s water, like Glenys ‘‘Gravedigger’’ Dingle, and on the other, those who are starved of it, like Mitchell and his experienced, elderly neighbours, the Bergen siblings. Something so basic and life-sustaining, Ham underscores, is conversely critical and toxic.
Rosalie Ham’s The Year of the Farmer is a slow burner to begin with, but once catalyst Mandy gets riled, the book’s provocative character portrayals and message become incendiary.