My Father and Other Animals: How I Took on the Family Farm: Winner of the 2023 Prime Minister's Literary...

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Sam Vincent

My Father and Other Animals

How I Took on the Family Farm: Winner of the 2023 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Nonfiction...

Sam Vincent

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English

Black Inc
02 August 2022

Autobiography: general; Memoirs; Agriculture & farming; Organic farming; Biography - Australian

A moving and hilarious fish-out-of-water memoir of a millennial leaving his inner-city life to take over the family farm.

'For any reader desiring to understand contemporary rural Australia, this entertaining and important book is a must-read ... Refreshingly honest, acutely observed, witty, lyrical and delightfully ironic, My Father and Other Animals is a pure delight.' -Charles Massy, author of Call of the Reed Warbler

Sam Vincent is a twenty-something writer in the inner suburbs, scrabbling to make ends meet, when he gets a call from his mother- his father has stuck his hand into a woodchipper, but 'not to worry - it wasn't like that scene in Fargo or anything'. When Sam returns to the family farm to help out, his life takes a new and unexpected direction.

Whether castrating calves or buying a bull - or knocking in a hundred fence posts by hand when his dad hides the post-driver - Sam's farming apprenticeship is an education in grit and shit. But there are victories, too- nurturing a fig orchard to bloom; learning to read the land; joining forces with Indigenous elders to protect a special site. Slowly, Sam finds himself thinking differently about the farm, about his father and about his relationship with both.

By turns affecting, hilarious and utterly surprising, this memoir melds humour and fierce honesty in an unsentimental love letter. It's about belonging, humility and regeneration - of land, family and culture. What passes from father to son on this unruly patch of earth is more than a livelihood; it is a legacy.

2022 Grattan Institute Prime Minister's Summer Reading List

By: Sam Vincent
Imprint: Black Inc
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 233mm, Width: 154mm, Spine: 24mm
Weight: 400g
ISBN: 9781760640439
ISBN 10: 1760640433
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 02 August 2022
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Out of Print

Sam Vincent's writing has appeared in The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, Griffith Review and The Best Australian Essays. His first book, Blood and Guts, was longlisted for the Walkley Book Award and in 2019 he won the Walkley Award for longform feature writing.