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TITLE: The Farm
AUTHOR: Tom Rob Smith
GENRE: Thriller, Mystery
PUBLISHED: February 2014
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon, iTunes
MOBILISM LINK: Mobilism
Description: Until the moment he received a frantic call from his father, Daniel believed his parents were headed into a peaceful, well-deserved retirement. They had sold their home and business in London, and said "farewell to England" with a cheerful party where all their friends had gathered to wish them well on their great adventure: setting off to begin life anew on a remote, bucolic farm in rural Sweden.
But with that phone call, everything changes. Your mother's not well, his father tells him. She's been imagining things--terrible, terrible things. She's had a psychotic breakdown, and has been committed to a mental hospital.
Daniel prepares to rush to Sweden, on the first available flight the next day. Before he can board the plane, his father contacts him again with even more frightening news: his mother has been released from the hospital, and he doesn't know where she is.
Then, he hears from his mother:
I'm sure your father has spoken to you. Everything that man has told you is a lie. I'm not mad. I don't need a doctor. I need the police. I'm about to board a flight to London. Meet me at Heathrow.
Caught between his parents, and unsure of who to believe or trust, Daniel becomes his mother's unwilling judge and jury as she tells him an urgent tale of secrets, of lies, of a horrible crime and a conspiracy that implicates his own father.
Review: Who would you believe? If it were between your mom and dad, how would you know who was telling the truth?
That is Daniel's dilemma in this gripping, tightly-written psychological thriller. This book is an unsettling, edgy ride, as it twists and turns it's way from Daniel's London digs to the isolated sand-dunes and barren, gray skies of rural Sweden. The story has many layers (it's a story within a story) and touches on numerous issues: family secrets, trust, and betrayal, to name a few. With Mr. Smith's superb writing skill, I was often left guessing, not able to discard or totally believe in Tilde's story. It's a riveting read with a tense, first rate plot that keeps you on the edge of your seat, wondering who to believe. I was left suspended in uncertainty, discovering things right along with Daniel, as his mother's incredible version of events unfolds. The book is told mainly from the perspective of Daniel's mother, Tilde, the ultimate unreliable narrator. She may believe every word she says, but her credibility has been badly damaged. The reader is strung along, for how are we know what is real, and what is not?
Tilde, sixty-ish, was raised on a small farm in Sweden, and driven from home as a teenager, for reasons unknown. Twenty-nine year old Daniel thinks his parents, Chris and Tilde, have happily retired to a rural farm in his mother's native Sweden. Then comes the frantic phone call from his father, telling him his mother is mentally ill, psychotic, and dangerous. Tilde is "imagining terrible, horrible things," and has escaped from a mental hospital. Daniel prepares to fly to Sweden, but after arriving at the airport, receives a call from his mother:
‘Daniel, listen to me carefully—’
It was my mum.
‘I’m on a payphone and don’t have much credit. I’m sure your father has spoken to you. Everything that man has told you is a lie. I’m not mad. I don’t need a doctor. I need the police. I’m about to board a flight to London. Meet me at Heathrow, Terminal . . .’
She paused for the first time to check her ticket information. Seizing the opportunity, all I could manage was a pitiful ‘. . . Mum!’
‘Daniel, don’t talk, I have very little time. The plane comes in at Terminal One. I’ll be landing in two hours. If your father calls, remember—’
The phone cut off.
I tried calling the payphone back in the hope that my mum would pick up, but there was no answer. As I was about to try again, my dad rang. Without any preamble he began to speak, sounding like he was reading from notes:
‘At seven-twenty this morning she spent four hundred pounds at Gothenburg airport. The vendor was Scandinavian Airlines. She’s in time for the first flight to Heathrow. She’s on her way to you! Daniel?’
‘Yes.’
Why didn’t I tell him that Mum had just called and that I already knew she was on her way? Did I believe her? She’d sounded commanding and authoritative. I’d expected a stream of consciousness, not clear facts and compact sentences. I was confused. It felt aggressive and confrontational to repeat her assertions that my dad was a liar. I stuttered a reply:
‘I’ll meet her here. When are you flying over?’
‘I’m not.’
‘You’re staying in Sweden?’
‘If she thinks I’m in Sweden she’ll relax. She’s got it into her head that I’m pursuing her. Staying here will buy you some time. You need to convince her to get help. I can’t help her. She won’t let me. Take her to the doctor’s. You have a better chance if she’s not worrying about me.’
I couldn’t follow his reasoning.
‘I’ll call you when she arrives. Let’s work out a plan then.’
I ended the conversation with my thoughts pinched between interpretations. If my mum was suffering from a psychotic episode, why had the doctors discharged her? Even if they couldn’t detain her on a legal technicality they should’ve notified my dad, yet they’d refused, treating him as a hostile force, aiding her escape not from hospital but from him. To other people she must seem okay. The airline staff had sold her a ticket, security had allowed her through airport screening – no one had stopped her.
Released from the hospital, Tilde is on a flight to London with a leather satchel filled with evidence. She has discovered proof of "atrocities, monstrous crimes," and a conspiracy involving village men and her own husband. Daniel must stay in London and hear her story. He must believe her! She will depend upon him to be a neutral third party, listen with an "open mind," and be the final judge of her sanity. She tells him:
You asked me directly. I answered. Now I’m asking you directly. Is this too much for you? Because if you’re stalling for time until your father arrives, if your tactic is to keep me talking while you don’t listen to a word, trapping me here under false pretenses so that the two of you can drive me to an asylum, then let me warn you, I’d consider that a betrayal so grave our relationship would never recover. You would no longer be my son.
As his mother spills the beans, Daniel realizes he has grown distant from his parents (for reasons of his own), and has been blind to their financial difficulties. His family has a "tradition of concealment." His parents have kept up the image of a perfect marriage, but they have kept things from him; an incident from Tilde's teen years, and the fact that they've lost their savings. But Daniel seems to prefer being in the dark...
The bad times were hidden. I was complicit in the arrangement. I didn’t probe. That farewell party had been a good time, the crowd cheering as my mum and dad set off, embarking on a great adventure, my mum returning to the country she’d left when she was just sixteen years old.
My mum gestured for me to sit down, indicating that her account would take some time. Briefly I was taken back to the many occasions when she’d read to me at bedtime, saddened by the contrast between the tranquility of those childhood memories and the anxiety I was now feeling. It might seem that I lacked curiosity or courage, but my impulse was to implore her not to read.
Daniels mother, Tilde, delivers some persuasive evidence in the form of objects and hand-written journals, insisting her story must be told "in chronological order." Tilde asserts that hubby Chris has been tainted by a neighboring farmer, Hakan Greggson, a commanding, controlling man, who has the big town players, including the mayor, in his back pocket. Hakan has an adopted, bi-racial teenage daughter, Mia, who has turned up missing. Tilde claims Chris has been drawn into a perverted group of men who are sexually abusing young girls. He is also involved in Mia's disappearance. So fearful is she of her husband showing up, she is frantic when the the apartment door rattles:
Downstairs a hand could be heard fumbling at the chain, reaching around the door, trying to unbolt it. My mum cried out:
‘He’s here!’
In a scramble she began packing up the evidence. Working fast, she returned each piece of evidence to its place in the satchel. She slotted the smaller items into the front pockets, the larger items, including the rusted steel box, into the rear, highly ordered with no wasted space. It was clear that she’d done this before, keeping her evidence mobile and ready to move at a moment’s notice. My mum glanced at the access door to the roof garden:
‘We need another way out!’
My dad had tricked us. He’d lied, flying direct, arriving sooner, catching us by surprise just as my mum had claimed.
The narration is driven by the choice Daniel must make. Does he believe his mother's version laid out so convincingly? Or does he side with his father and conclude his mother is delusional, and in need of immediate help? He is caught in the middle, uncertain who to believe.
To find the truth, Daniel must go to Sweden and do some digging himself, but he's afraid of the truth and has secrets of his own...
Who would you choose? If it were between your mom and dad, who would you believe?
To share any more of the plot would be a grievous disservice to future readers of Tom Rob Smith's mind-blowing novel The Farm. However, (I can't help myself!) I don't think it's a spoiler to tell you Daniel does finally find the truth... As will you, unless you like being kept in the dark.
Extras:
This book was heavily hyped, which I didn't even know.. (could be because I was busy playing in the contests section) The creepy book trailer is here.
The book is based on a real life incident that happened between Mr. Smith and his parents. His mother had a psychotic episode, from which she has fully recovered. Tom Rob Smith, on the experience:
"You wouldn't think someone with psychosis could be […] meta-rhetorical. And she was, she was analyzing everything she said and seeing how it would come across. And I just thought, well, someone who is psychotic can't be this self-aware. But the whole point is that psychosis makes you hyper-self-aware. The thing that really took me by surprise was how little I knew about mental health."
BBC Films and Shine Pictures, the film division of Elisabeth Murdoch's Shine Group, have bought the rights to psychological thriller The Farm, the latest novel penned by Tom Rob Smith.
