The first thing that catches my eye is the cleverly composed cover of Sam Vincent’s memoir My Father and Other Animals. A small brown heifer (or steer?) stares directly at me through a farmhouse doorway, with an unmistakably Australian farming landscape behind it – a shorn paddock dotted with big round hay bales, a dam wall in the distance, a splash of green in a stand of trees off to the left, and a broad blue sky. The heifer-or-steer has its front hooves planted firmly at the threshold, its gaze is locked on mine, and its pink tongue is poking out cheekily. I like the look of this book already, a first impression that is quickly reinforced as I start reading.
In 2014, Sam Vincent was at a bit of a loose end: “At twenty-nine I was single, childless, casually employed in a dead-end office job and struggling to sell the odd piece of freelance journalism.” That was when fate stepped in, in the form of a woodchipper and his father’s hand, resulting in an injury which led to Sam and his parents deciding that he would come home to the family farm Gillion, near Canberra, a couple of days a week to help out. It was the beginning of an unofficial apprenticeship: “In helping protect my father from himself, I figured I might begin to know him – and he, me.”
Sam’s memoir tells the story of his journey from farmhand to farmer. Along the way, it also explores the changing nature of farming, the complications of farm succession, and less traditional approaches to agriculture. As an industry, agriculture has industrialised along with the rest of the economy, and today’s farming industry is increasingly dominated by bigger, more specialised, consortium owned farms rather than smaller family-owned farms. Gillion is different, and it is fascinating to read about their regenerative agriculture approaches: leaky weirs, grass farming, timed grazing, destocking in drought, biological pest control. Sam must also learn traditional farm skills – fencing, mechanical repairs, butchering, and stockwork. Cultural regeneration becomes one of his priorities as he works with Aboriginal people from the area to formally recognise their connection to the land going back thousands of years.
I had tears well up at some points, and laughed out loud at others. I cheered Sam’s fig orchard on and sympathised with him, his parents and his sisters during the difficult family discussions around him taking over Gillion. The final chapters bring alive again for me that black summer of devastating bushfires in 2019-20, and the impact of the pandemic through 2020. Through his experiences of those seven years and his developing understanding of the ongoing history of Gillion, Sam is able “to appreciate the continuity of human experience through time and space.” That’s what this book is, a snapshot of the continuity of human experience.
I’ll let Sam have the last word. “It is a privilege to manage a landscape, Dad taught me, but also a responsibility … we are only custodians of Gillion for a short time, so while we are, we must treat the role with respect.”
Author: Sam Vincent
Publisher: Black Inc. Books
ISBN: 9781760640439
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This book review is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
