Saturday, 15 March 2014

The Farm by Tom Rob Smith



The Farm is a fascinating premise for a novel; two seemingly unreliable narrators who are the parents of the protagonist, Daniel. Tom Rob Smith’s skill as a writer is evident in the careful way he teases the plot threads out as Daniel’s mother Tilde uses her journal to relate a sinister tale to her son surrounding the parents retirement to a remote Swedish farm.
However nothing is what it seems. At its dark heart the novel is a study of deception and delusion, the secrets and lies that underpin the fabric of a life.
As a reader I found myself fascinated by the apparent simplicity of the set-up, but quickly felt that I could not trust anything I was being told, which I feel certain was Smith’s intention. With a tightly focused cast of characters the distinctive voices that Smith creates, particularly for Tilde and Daniel, are key to the success of the novel, and the pace is carefully crafted and structured.
Because of the unusual structure the first three quarters of the novel are told in “real time” and cover no more than a few hours as Tilde tells her tale. I found myself completely in tune with this pace, and consequently I initially struggled with the abrupt change of pace in the final quarter of the novel when Daniel visits Sweden for himself to verify the truth of Tilde’s version of events.
Smith creates a palpable sense of dislocation within the novel and a feeling of isolation which has as much to do with emotional resonance as geographic location.
I have to say that there was one particular moment in the novel which didn’t work for me, which is when Tilde produces a carved knife from her bag. My instinctive reaction was to question just how she managed to get that through airport security! Also there were a few loose ends within Tilde’s story which Smith had set up enticingly, but then didn’t fully explain, which felt a little unsatisfactory. However these are very minor gripes within what is undoubtedly a superbly written piece.
Overall I raced through the book, fascinated to reach the end and to discover whether my guesses and deductions were correct. Smith didn’t disappoint.
On the strength of this I have now decided to go back and read Smith’s debut “Child 44” which had such high praise.

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