My Father and Other Animals

A moving and hilarious fish-out-of-water memoir of a millennial leaving his inner-city life to take over the family farm.

'For any reader desiring to understand contemporary rural Australia, this entertaining and important book is a must-read ... Refreshingly honest, acutely observed, witty, lyrical and delightfully ironic, My Father and Other Animals is a pure delight.' -Charles Massy, author of Call of the Reed Warbler

Sam Vincent is a twenty-something writer in the inner suburbs, scrabbling to make ends meet, when he gets a call from his mother- his father has stuck his hand into a woodchipper, but 'not to worry - it wasn't like that scene in Fargo or anything'. When Sam returns to the family farm to help out, his life takes a new and unexpected direction.

Whether castrating calves or buying a bull - or knocking in a hundred fence posts by hand when his dad hides the post-driver - Sam's farming apprenticeship is an education in grit and shit. But there are victories, too- nurturing a fig orchard to bloom; learning to read the land; joining forces with Indigenous elders to protect a special site. Slowly, Sam finds himself thinking differently about the farm, about his father and about his relationship with both.

By turns affecting, hilarious and utterly surprising, this memoir melds humour and fierce honesty in an unsentimental love letter. It's about belonging, humility and regeneration - of land, family and culture. What passes from father to son on this unruly patch of earth is more than a livelihood; it is a legacy.

2022 Grattan Institute Prime Minister's Summer Reading List

About the Author

Sam Vincent's writing has appeared in The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, Griffith Review and The Best Australian Essays. His first book, Blood and Guts, was longlisted for the Walkley Book Award and in 2019 he won the Walkley Award for longform feature writing.