In her memoir “Omega Farm,” Martha McPhee explores her unusual and rocky childhood on a farm in New Jersey.
About a third of the way through the book, her narrative takes a sharp turn when she reveals that she was sexually molested by Dan at Omega Farm when she was 11. Twenty pages later, the narrative takes another turn as McPhee moves the story back into the present to describe the hard work of caring for her mother and restoring the damaged forest surrounding the house.
McPhee’s prose is steady, her tone thoughtful. She examines events of the past from all angles. She is amazingly generous, loving her mother deeply, even as she wonders, years after Dan’s death: “Why did she stay with Dan when she knew? Why did she ask us to love himShe examines her own feelings: The molestation provoked shame, fear and embarrassment, but also a brief instant of pleasure. “At first, I didn’t want this to stop,” she notes. “I am ashamed to say that, even now.
Throughout, McPhee corrects her own memory repeatedly. She walks right up to telling the reader something about someone and then stops, noting that it is not her story to tell. This carefulness adds to her credibility; she positions herself neither as victim nor saint but as someone who, she says, only wants to be good.
“It isn’t possible to fix this family,” she notes. “It was broken and reimagined a long time ago. Fixing it was never my job.”Laurie Hertzel is a book critic in Minnesota and the author of the memoir “News to Me.” She teaches in the low-residency MFA program at the University of Georgia.
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