Vagabond, foodie, poet and professor Matthew Gavin Frank left his vigil at the bedside of his finally stabilized cancer-stricken mother in his home town Chicago and, like Huck Finn, "[lit] out for the territory ahead of the rest." In his case, the territory was a medicinal marijuana farm in Mendocino County, Calif.; the resident yoga instructor had called to offer him a seasonal stint working "the grow" at the farm of a buxom Janis Joplin lookalike named Lady Wanda.
The legal pot farm is a relatively new phenomenon, but Wanda's motley work crew seems very much out of the illegal communal dope farms of the Wavy-Gravy 1960s. Frank's funny Pot Farm, admittedly influenced by a taste of the harvest and some James Frey stretching of the facts, tells the stories of these mostly nicknamed renegades: Charlie the Mechanic, Crazy Jeff, Hector the Tree Sniper, Lawn Mower Man and, of course, earth mother Lady Wanda herself--"her cleavage as deep as a well, ample enough to house not only a few coins, but my entire bank account."
The memoir's season of weed, however, is not all smoking, jiving and sleeping in a tent. Legal marijuana is big business; from the grows to the dispensaries, it throws $1.7 billion into the Mendocino County economy. It requires hard hand labor and careful pruning, cutting and processing. Because the state and federal laws conflict, any day the crop could be confiscated by the DEA ("Johnny Screw" as Wanda calls it) and the whole crew arrested. But with ganja clippers in his calloused hands, Frank covers it all in this entertaining adventure. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.