Raised in San Francisco, Antonia Murphy is a graduate of Columbia University who has lived and worked in cities from New York to Rome, Villefranche-sur-Mer, France, to Invercargill, New Zealand. She now lives and writes in Purua, New Zealand, with her husband and their two children.
“Antonia Murphy is a writer of great charm and appeal. She's kind
of impossible to resist.”
—Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of The
Signature of All Things and Eat, Pray, Love
“Dirty Chick has it all. And by all I mean homemade booze, arson, a
heavy hand of insanity and a magic place called Love Mountain. It's
the dirtiest, most delightful book I've ever read. I f*cking loved
it, laughed my ass off, and got so grossed out I couldn't wait to
go back and visit Antonia and her very brave family on her raucous
New Zealand farm. Dirty Chick will love you long time.”
—Laurie Notaro, New York Times bestselling author of The Idiot
Girls’ Action Adventure Club and The Potty Mouth at the Table
“Dirty Chick perfectly captures the chaotic balance of hilarity,
hardship, triumph, tragedy, romance, pornography and general
grossness that makes up farm life. In this crowded world of hipster
farmers, Antonia Murphy proves herself to be the real thing.”
—Josh Kilmer-Purcell, bestselling author of I Am Not Myself These
Days and The Bucolic Plague and star of The Fabulous Beekman
Boys
“Way down under in the land of hobbits, a family of transplanted
Californians do battle with monsters worse than mere dragons –
lusty goats, a crazed rooster, and alpacas that spit green gobs of
goo. Nearly every page of Antonia Murphy’s big, boisterous,
hilarious tale of how not to start a farm in New Zealand bristles
with jaw-droppingly outrageous livestock encounters and visceral
details that would have made Rabelais blush. Wallowing in this
filthy, funny, and unexpectedly sweet tale of self-inflected misery
is the perfect cure for the next time you’re feeling too sorry for
yourself.”
—Bob Tarte, author of Enslaved by Ducks and Kitty Cornered
“Just when I thought motherhood was the toughest challenge there
is, along comes Antonia Murphy, doing the Mommy thing with goats,
cows and freaking alpacas. Her hilarious exploits with chickens,
lambs and a single amorous rooster make me grateful there's no goat
colostrum in my sippy cup. Trigger warning: Dirty Chick might make
you laugh out loud. Proceed with care.”
—Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, author of Sippy Cups Are Not for
Chardonnay and Naptime Is the New Happy Hour, and go-to parenting
expert for The Today Show
“Filled with sass, love, high energy, foibles, and the delicious
power of a rich and supportive community, this book is raw, rugged
and alive in a personal, humanistic way. Dirty Chick is a great
read for any DIY farmer wannabe and anyone who wants to take a peek
at how dreams and reality blur when you actually take the risk to
jump into your passion full speed ahead. Three cheers and a big
cloacal kiss for Antonia! May all your cheeses bloom, without poil
de chat!”
—Ricki Carroll, A.K.A. “The Cheese Queen,” author of Home Cheese
Making: Recipes for 75 Homemade Cheeses
“Murphy's book presents an unsentimental, at times unapologetically
graphic, treatment of farm life. At the same time, it offers a
comic yet thoroughly wise perspective on what it means to start
over in a new country and live close to a natural world that is
anything but romantic. Warm, funny and touching.”
—Kirkus
In sparkling prose, Antonia Murphy takes us along on one family’s
foray into the world of small farming. By turns entertaining and
heart wrenching, her story is so captivating that I neglected my
own chores and children to follow hers on their wild ride. Farming
and parenting are both dirty work—exhausting, satisfying, rich with
all kinds of meaning—and Murphy captures life in all its gory and
glorious complication. Dirty Chick is an exceptional story of
Murphy and her crew finding their place in the world.
—Margaret Hathaway, author of The Year of the Goat and Living With
Goats
— Advance Praise for Antonia Murphy
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