Farm City by Novella Carpenter

I never thought I would read a book that literally sucked me in at the first sentence. But how can you not keep reading after Novella Carpenter tells you, “I have a farm on a dead-end street in the ghetto.” It turns out she wasn’t exaggerating.  

Although Oakland, California is known to be one of the most diverse major cities in the U.S. it also has a high crime rate and in 2007 approximately 17% of the general population were living below the poverty line. Gertrude Stein famously described her Oakland childhood home in these few but telling words: “There is no there there.” On the bright side, Oakland gets, on average, 260 sunny days per year and is ranked at No. 1 in the U.S. for using electricity from renewable resources.  It’s an interesting place to grow a farm, that’s for sure.

Farm City is divided into three chapters; Turkey, Rabbit, and Pig. But this book is so much more than its livestock. Carpenter takes the reader on a journey through the heart and soul of farming. And the gaggle of characters that help and inspire her are as rich as the writing. I was really drawn in by Carpenter’s tone and her no-bullshit attitude in telling her story. This is no cookie cutter, country farming. There are gun shots in the background, a homeless watchman, a highway zooming by overhead and the threat that the ‘farm’ which is on an abandoned lot might be sold at any moment to a condo developer. 

Recently I have been reading a lot of farming memoirs or back-to-the-land stories and while most of them are inspiring and generally well written they can be a little cliché at the same time. I understand that I’m probably jealous that all these authors got the chance to grow their own food and then write a book about it but if I have to read another book about how easy and soul-fulfilling it is I might be sick. Farming is hard, plain and simple. Whether you do it in the country on many acres of land or in the city on an abandoned lot. Animals die, plants suffer from disease or drought, predators can come and kill your crops and livestock in one night. And what a lot of these authors don’t write about is how hard and yet rewarding it is to keep going and find ways to bounce back. Carpenter is tough as nails and yet soulful in her own way. She makes the reader appreciate how hard it is to raise these animals, kill them, cure them and also how delicious it is to enjoy your hard work.

Carpenter is gutsy, wickedly funny and the bravest person in Oakland. While dumpster diving for her pigs she is caught and told ominously to talk to Christopher Lee.  When she comes back to speak with Chris, the owner and chef at a swanky Berkley restaurant she explains why she dumpster dives and grows her own food.  “I had all kinds of reasons. Because I’m an ecofreak, because of bacon, because I can’t bear to see food wasted. In a way, the answer was: because I could.” And why not? We so often tell ourselves we can’t do things because of all kinds of reasons but Carpenter shows us that its more than doable. With a little sweat, animal blood and some tears.