num_pages: 320
description: 10 Foolish Fortune Hunters begins on the day Cal was busted for growing half a million dollars worth of marijuana in 1984. While she's standing at the window waiting for the police car that's going to take her to jail, time stops and the reader is taken back to the day she and fellow growers vowed to live in peaceful fellowship and never cultivate just for the sake of making money. During the ensuing five years those vows collapse like a house of cards while she poaches from poachers, lies to liars, and swindles swindlers. Knives, guns, threats, broken contracts, rattlesnakes, and rats are part of the drama. She forms several nefarious partnerships--with an aikido teacher, a former prostitute from Starlight Ranch, the owner of a Mexican restaurant, a former 49er football player, an embezzler, and an airplane pilot. Each succeeding season she plants more marijuana and finds herself deeper in trouble. Then she meets the espresso cafe owner, Wing, a Buddhist who teaches her we can master the art of camouflage so well we become a mystery to ourselves. Wing writes his speeches for the day on cafe napkins, enlightening us on such topics as why the cafe is the best part of culture, the secret of the fountain of youth, the driving force behind the DNA code, alpha versus beta brain waves, and why it is we prefer myths rather than genuine reality. His speeches trace the history of words back to the first shaman, revealing the hypnotic power words have over us and how they prevent us from discovering the basic sanity that resides at the still center of the storm. 10 Foolish Fortune Hunters is a fancy-wrought breath of fresh air. Light in tone and illuminating in content, this autobiographical novel of a counter culture outlaw transcends the social differences that divide by exploring the hypnotic power of words and money. Cal's search for a story to write about adventurous women who don't die at the end turns into its own unique adventure and a tightrope walker's exploration of the fine, flexible line between imagination and reality.
language: English
title: 10 Foolish Fortune Hunters : The True Tale of a Female Marijuana Farmer
titlecomplete: 10 Foolish Fortune Hunters : The True Tale of a Female Marijuana Farmer
ratings_count: 2
publisher: Whutaworld