Farm

Life is a lucrative business, as long as you play by the rules. Nestled in New York's Hudson Valley is a luxury retreat boasting every amenity: organic meals, private fitness trainers, daily massages-and all of it for free. In fact, you're paid big money to stay here-more than you've ever dreamed of. The catch? For nine months, you cannot leave the grounds; your movements are monitored, and you are cut off from your former life while you dedicate yourself to the task of producing the perfect baby. Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines, is in desperate search of a better future when she commits to being a Host at Golden Oaks, or the Farm as residents call it. But now pregnant, fragile, consumed with worry for her own family, Jane is determined to reconnect with her life outside. Yet she cannot leave the Farm or she will lose the life-changing fee she'll receive on delivery. Heartbreaking, gripping, provocative, The Farm pushes our thinking on motherhood, money, and merit to the extremes, and raises crucial questions about the trade-offs women will make to fortify their futures and the futures of those they love. Advance praise for The Farm "Wow, Joanne Ramos has written the page-turner about immigrants chasing what's left of the American dream. . . . Truly unforgettable."-Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Lake Success "A highly original and provocative story about the impossible choices in so many women's lives. These characters will stay with me for a long time."-Karen Thompson Walker, New York Times bestselling author of The Age of Miracles and The Dreamers "The Farm terrifies with a simple question: How much of ourselves are we willing to sell? With characters so real they leap off the page, Ramos yanks the reader into a world of Haves and Have-Nots, and her question lingers long after we turn the final page."-Christina Dalcher, author of Vox "The Farm is a completely plausible imagination of the future of pregnancy in a world of ever-greater inequality. What at first feels off-kilter is slowly ramped up to truly chilling, and it's done so subtly that we barely notice the change happening-it's not afraid to ask searching questions about who wins and who loses when women's bodies are commodified, and how freedom and agency for some come at a cost for others. It's sharply prescient, and terrifying, too."-Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure