"A clever, challenging debut focusing on social class, wealth and motherhood, and while it is set just in the future, is actually very much of our time."
An intriguing and thoughtful debut that pushes, prods, and provokes thoughts on social class, wealth and motherhood. Golden Oaks is a retreat that locates and looks after host females who act as surrogates for the extraordinarily rich, those who can’t or don’t want to carry their own child. Every move, every heartbeat of each host is monitored until they give birth. We follow the lives of four women, each with very different reasons for their involvement with the retreat known by the occupants as The Farm. For the first few chapters I sat on the edge, watching and learning, I then felt myself sliding into the pages, fully immersed, compelled to witness. Joanne Ramos has created a fascinating storyline, with intimate access to the thought processes of the four women ensuring I was able to observe the interaction, the assumptions, the decisions made. The Farm is a clever, challenging debut, and while set just in the future, is very much of our time.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
| Other Genres: | |
| Recommendations: |
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Life is a lucrative business, as long as you play by the rules.
Skimm Reads Pick People Book of the Week Belletrist Book Pick "[Joanne] Ramos's debut novel couldn't be more relevant or timely."-O: The Oprah Magazine
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time Glamour Real Simple Good Housekeeping Marie Claire Town & Country
Nestled in New York's Hudson Valley is a luxury retreat boasting every amenity: organic meals, personal fitness trainers, daily massages-and all of it for free. In fact, you're paid big money to stay here-more than you've ever dreamed of. The catch? For nine months, you cannot leave the grounds, your movements are monitored, and you are cut off from your former life while you dedicate yourself to the task of producing the perfect baby. For someone else.
Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines, is in desperate search of a better future when she commits to being a "Host" at Golden Oaks-or the Farm, as residents call it. But now pregnant, fragile, consumed with worry for her family, Jane is determined to reconnect with her life outside. Yet she cannot leave the Farm or she will lose the life-changing fee she'll receive on the delivery of her child.
Gripping, provocative, heartbreaking, The Farm pushes to the extremes our thinking on motherhood, money, and merit and raises crucial questions about the trade-offs women will make to fortify their futures and the futures of those they love.
NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE
"So many factors-gender, race, religion, class-may determine where you come down on the surrogacy debate. . . . Ramos plays with many of these notions in her debut novel, The Farm, which imagines what might happen were surrogacy taken to its high-capitalist extreme. . . . The stage is set for lively book chat."-The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)
"A thrilling read."-New York
"Grippingly realistic."-Entertainment Weekly
"Brilliant."-New York Post
"A provocative idea, and Ramos nails it . . . Crisp and believable, this smart debut links the poor and the 1 percent in a unique transaction that turns out to be mutually rewarding."-People
"Wow, Joanne Ramos has written the page-turner about immigrants chasing what's left of the American dream. . . . Truly unforgettable."-Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Lake Success
The Farm features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Debut Books of the Month, Debuts, Dystopian and utopian fiction, Family Drama, General Fiction, Sharing Diverse Voices, eBooks of the Month, Fiction, Recommendations, Speculative fiction
The Farm is available in Paperback, Hardback, Ebook (Epub)
The Farm was written by Joanne Ramos and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks an imprint of Random House Publishing Group
The Farm has 352 pages
