Host Women

~ The Farm, by Joanne Ramos ~

This is definitely a debut novel. It was a pleasant read, but was flawed in many of the typical ways a debut novel too often is, if lacking editorial support. 

The title of the novel refers to Golden Oakes, an institution which provides surrogacy facilities to rich clients who can pay for such services. The ambitious, competent Mae Yu runs this project, finding ‘Hosts’ – surrogates – to be pregnant and deliver babies on behalf of ‘Clients’ who choose surrogacy not only for reasons of infertility, but sometimes for lifestyle reasons. Golden Oakes apparently has surrogates from many different races – which in itself, is fairly unusual as a set up for a surrogacy clinic or dormitory. But Ramos is right in highlighting that there is a ranking of surrogates in order of desirability, usually along criteria such as educational backgrounds, skin colour and appearance, possibly even religion and morals. 

Although the novel was a thoughtful, sensitive exploration of how migrant Filipinos in US struggle, and the conditions under which they work and strive, the novel seemed a conflation of two themes – the migrant Filipino experience, and the surrogacy issue. Neither was explored to the depth they needed to be, as a result of the conflation. However, there were very promising flashes in this novel – such as when Ate [older sister] Evelyn negotiates with Mrs Carter over the delivery of baked goods – Ramos handles those exchanges skillfully, demonstrating the pettiness, power play, and impositions on the Filipinos who offer housecleaning, nannying, and catering services, without diminishing the agency of the immigrants even as she depicts exploitation.

Ate Evelyn who has been in the US for 20 years and has been successful in a number of enterprises, has a young cousin, Jane Reyes. Jane’s story is not unlike Evelyn’s, in that her useless man/husband leaves her with a baby (Amalia) to look after on her own. (The depiction of Fillipino men in this novel is fairly negative, depicting most of them as useless, shiftless, even abusive.) Jane has poor judgement, and makes a few mistakes, leading Evelyn to prompt her to try surrogacy as a way of making a lot of money. So Jane joins Golden Oakes, where she meets do-gooder Reagan, from a privileged background, and Lisa, a 3-time surrogate who breaks rules with apparent impunity.

The novel tries to set up Golden Oakes as insidious – but in truth, it is probably more fiction than reality – surrogacy dormitories are the norm for international surrogacies in a number of countries, but the level of control of surrogates is not quite done in a cloak and dagger fashion as this novel attempts to hint at – it is usually quite as draconian, but blatantly so. It is true clients call the shots, and that the clinics and institutions as middlemen control the surrogates and are gatekeepers with tremendous power in this industry. But this is hardly a secret, and although not necessarily desirable, common practise nevertheless. 

The ending is unsurprisingly unsatisfactory, too easy, and unconvincing, as often is with a debut novel that either runs out of steam, or has not yet developed the expertise in wrapping up a narrative at the right time, at a good pace, and at the right point in the narrative. And yet, for all its little flaws, this was a good book to read. There were interesting characters – some very true to life and convincing, like Ate Evelyn, and some like Mae Yu who are akin to robotic narrative devices and walking stereotypes. Ramos provides some lovely background stories for most of her main characters, which works very well, and the entire topic was handled quite thoughtfully, if needing quite a lot more research into Fillipino migrants. The best parts were the depictions of the interactions between the Fillipino migrant women, the way they help, support, and complain about each other, their families, their employers. That had the ring of truth to it, and captured quite beautifully a difficult landscape to depict. 

Overall, this author shows much promise. And this novel is definitely not without interest; its shortcomings are easily compensated by the strong narrative and characters in it.

The Farm, by Joanne Ramos. Random House, 2019