The Farmer's Son: Calving Season on a Family Farm

by John Connell

Overview

For fans of The Shepherd’s Life, a poignant memoir—and #1 Irish bestseller—about a wayward son’s return home to his family’s farm, and how he found a new beginning in an age-old world

Farming has been in John Connell's family for generations, but he never intended to follow in his father's footsteps. Until, one winter, after more than a decade away, he finds himself back on the farm.

Connell records the hypnotic rhythm of the farming day—cleaning the barns, caring for the herd, tending to sickly lambs, helping the cows give birth. Alongside the routine events, there are the unforeseen moments when things go wrong: when a calf fails to thrive, when a sheep goes missing, when illness breaks out, when an argument between father and son erupts and things are said that cannot be unsaid.

The Farmer’s Son is the story of a calving season, and the story of a man who emerges from depression to find hope in the place he least expected to find it. It is the story of Connell's life as a farmer, and of his relationship with the community of County Longford, with his faith, with the animals he tends, and, above all, with his father.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780358305590
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/12/2020
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	1,140,389
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

JOHN CONNELL’s work has been published in Granta’s New Irish Writing issue. His memoir, The Farmer’s Son, was a #1 bestseller in Ireland. He lives on his family farm, Birchview, in County Longford, Ireland.

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the 2018 An Post Irish Book Award/Ireland AM Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year An iBooks Most Anticipated Titles of 2019 “This book is a vivid and sharply observed account of a way of life which is almost invisible, a new hidden Ireland. It is also a fascinating portrait of a single sensibility, a born noticer, someone on whom nothing is lost, observing birth and death, the landscape, and his own heritage.” —Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn and Nora Webster   “A gorgeous evocation of farm life’s recurring cycle of births, deaths, seasons, weather, chores and life lessons, all spun into a lovely web of stories illuminated by crystalline prose. What comes through on every page is Mr. Connell’s heart and humility—and his profound appreciation for the animals who depend on him for their well-being, and vice versa.” –The Wall Street Journal “I usually view rural Ireland from a train or car window, but reading this gripping, fascinating book I felt I was becoming a cattle farmer.” —Roddy Doyle   “One of the most striking features of [The Farmer’s Son] is that, although John Connell is describing years-old farming practices, it feels as though you are reading about them for the first time. Connell’s vivid writing brings his subject matter to life and makes the reader feel connected to the birth and death cycles on a typical farm . . . There is much to praise here, from the way the author writes about the animals in his care, to his openness about depression and intelligent reflections on the state of modern farming. A natural writer, Connell is also a sympathetic and wise observer of the eternal struggle involving humans and animals.” —Sunday Times (UK) “Connell’s moving memoir tracks his life on the family farm, his fights with his father, and charts humanity’s long relationship with cattle . . . This is a brooding, powerful memoir about a twenty-nine-year-old man’s return to the family farm in Ireland and his difficult relationship with his taciturn and short-tempered father.” —Guardian “Old ways meet new and the generations work out their tensions all over again in this evocative memoir…In John Connell, Ireland might find its Wendell Berry.” —Plough  “The Farmer's Son is a powerful, beautiful story about the tug of land, the meaning of home and one man's place in the world.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune “An honest, vivid reckoning of what it’s like to simultaneously belong and not belong, [The Farmer’s Son] becomes John Connell’s meditation on the real meaning of home and place.” —Irish Times   “One of the joys of this book is the prose, its clean plainness offset by the glorious cadences of Irish speech . . . Surely a prize winner.” —Daily Mail   "In the spaces between its passages of intimate pastoral meditation, [The Farmer’s Son]’s historical examination of our deep relationship with our bovine friends reads like a history of conflict, both with and over these important creatures.” —Independent (Ireland)   “Admirably raw and unsentimental . . . An original and thought-provoking book.” —Mail on Sunday   “A compelling portrait of lif —

From the Publisher

02/25/2019

In this moody, lyrical memoir, Connell, a writer and film producer, recounts his return to his family’s farm in Ireland’s Midlands region when he was 29. It is ostensibly a temporary stay to help his parents during calving season, but the bittersweet homecoming becomes a haven from the crushing depressive episodes Connell suffers, and he uses the time to better understand his heritage and contemplate his identity as a writer (“Perhaps Birchview is my Walden. I have felt that it is only in the last year that I have finally begun to live”). He ruminates about how his father’s storytelling abilities provided him the “gift of writing,” while also describing the unspoken resentments between an overworked, aging father and the son he feels is wasting his life. As the season progresses, Connell develops a routine of listening to Hemingway audiobooks while tending to his herds and flocks, through it all pondering the juxtaposition of the farmer’s life with his former artist’s existence. Eventually, a climactic argument about the farm degrades into scathing screeds that leave both father and son confused about the future of their “fractious relationship.” Connell’s measured voice creates a slow, powerful drip of emotional revelation that earns the reader’s admiration. This is a beautifully written memoir of the challenges faced when returning home. (May)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2019-02-28

A writer returns home to work at his family's farm in rural Ireland and records day-to-day struggles and triumphs throughout his first season.

In this thoughtfully observed and poignant debut memoir, Connell paints a remarkably authentic portrait of farm life in all its harshness and beauty. His story begins in January as he is about to deliver his first calf on his own. He describes the long, painstakingly intense procedure before he successfully delivered the calf, followed by the equally difficult task of helping the newborn to feed. This experience sets the tone for the engrossing narrative that follows, as Connell recounts the many challenging moments he faced over the next several months. These included the births and deaths of various livestock, endless feeding and cleaning, and protecting the animals from varied and unpredictable forces of nature. "The work is so relentless that I have forgotten I have lived other lives or that other lives exist," writes Connell. "There is only the yard and cows and the mountain of chores before me." The author also shares his internal struggle with his identity and family, in particular the difficult ties with his father, who has been mentor and guide and occasionally his harshest critic. Connell returned to the farm following a 10-year absence working as a journalist and film producer and living abroad, all the while preserving a longing for the farm life he left behind and struggling through periods of depression. Though the author vividly depicts the many hardships and grueling labor involved in running a farm, he maintains an open reverence for the intrinsic value of these efforts and a deep compassion for the animals and environment. "Farming," he writes, "is a walk with survival, with death over our shoulder, sickness to our left, the spirit to our right and the joy of new life in front."

A deeply felt, unforgettable story that will linger in readers' imaginations.

Kirkus Reviews