Pot edibles memoir kicks off new book club
If buildings could talk, the blue warehouse on 20th Street deep in the Mission would have endless stories. About housing Sticky Fingers Brownies, the illegal cannabis bakery that thrived during the 1970s. About Meridy and Doug Volz, the eccentric married couple who lived there and sold 10,000 edibles each month to the circuslike subcultures of San Francisco.
And about their daughter, Alia, who spent her first two years in the onceramshackle building where her parents’ housemates and coworkers in the illicit drug trade made life unforgettable. But also very hushhush.
Through hundreds of hours of interviews with her parents and 60 of their friends, Volz has spilled the secrets of Sticky Fingers
Brownies in her book, “Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana and the Stoning of San Francisco.” And she’s sharing it with her beloved hometown as the first selection for the new Total SF book club, a program from The Chronicle, the San Francisco Public Library and Green Apple Books.
“Growing up in an illegal bakery here, I had to keep everything secret,” Volz said. “Being able to share my version of the city with you now is an honor and a thrill. Get ready for a wild ride.”
While Volz’s story is the first wild ride, it won’t be the last. We’ll pick a new book by a San Francisco author or about San Francisco — or both — each quarter to read as a city. Chronicle pop culture critic Peter Hartlaub and I will be your hosts, and we’ll bring you Total SF podcasts with the authors, lots of social media banter as we read and a library event to talk about the book.
We started Total SF in 2018 on the crazy day we rode every Muni bus , streetcar and cable car in 18 hours and have continued it with our makeover of the 49 Mile Scenic Drive, San Francisco movie screenings, podcasts and other adventures. The idea is to not just gripe about this frustrating city, but to take time to celebrate its wonder and whimsy too.
And as San Francisco
begins to come back to life after the brutal past year, it’s even more important to value the artists, writers, small businesses, libraries and kooky characters who make our city great.
“We’re thrilled to have the library play a role in the launch of this San Franciscothemed book club because just like Total SF, we’re all about love and celebration for this city, supporting San Francisco’s economic recovery and bringing people together around reading and books,” said city librarian Michael Lambert.
As for “Home Baked,” its hardcover release last year was overshadowed by the start of the COVID19 pandemic, and Volz’s 20city book tour was canceled. So was the huge party she planned for the people she interviewed for the book.
Sadly, that meant canceling her hiring of
a Sylvester impersonator for the party. The famed gender fluid disco singer was one of her mom’s most beloved brownie clients, and Volz used to spend a lot of time in his apartment on delivery day. Where does one find a Sylvester impersonator?
“One speaks with the good people at the Stud,” Volz said with a laugh.
But there’s time for a redo of sorts with the release of her paperback — on 4/20, naturally. Green Apple will stock books signed by Volz, who lives near the Inner Richmond store, and we encourage you to buy copies from there or your favorite local independent bookstore if you can afford it. Now more than ever, we need to support the small businesses we love as they struggle to make it through the COVID19 pandemic. Then you’ll have several weeks to read the book
before the library hosts a virtual event with Volz on May 20.
Volz said she was “honored” to be our first pick — and can’t quite believe the interviews she started with her mother more than 10 years ago on her mom’s bed, dubbed “the barge,” have become such a success. It’s a finalist in the autobiography category for the National Book Critics Circle awards, and the winners will be announced Thursday. Go “Home Baked”!
The critics circle called the memoir “really five books in one” because it covers so much territory. It tracks the evolution of marijuana from an underground, illegal drug to a saving grace for AIDS patients to the widely available, legal drug now. In California anyway. It also dives deep into the mass deaths at Jonestown and the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk while managing to mostly be an uplifting romp and tellall family memoir.
Volz said her parents were good sports to open up so much about an endeavor they had to hide for so long.
She and her dad were estranged in the years leading up to the book’s publication, and it’s actually brought them much closer together. Doug Volz, 66, who split from Meridy a long time ago, is now retired and spends his time making art. He lives with his partner, Rick, and his mother in Willits (Mendocino County.)
He doesn’t come across well in the book, but said in an interview he supports his daughter and likes “Home Baked.”
“I had a couple of moments thinking, ‘Really, that’s me?’” he said. “I learned things about myself that were not really easy to look at.”
He said living in San Francisco in the 1970s was “a dream” that he was lucky to enjoy.
Meridy Volz, 73, lives in the Palm Springs area and teaches art to youth in juvenile hall. She’s the hero of the book — and she loves it, having read it five times already.
“She’s known everything that’s gone on in my life, good or bad. I’ve never hid that ever,” Meridy Volz said of her daughter. “That led to the amount of intimacy and honesty in the book.”
So what will she and her daughter do when they’re both vaccinated and can reunite for the first time in a year?
“A perfect day would just be to hang. Go for a walk, have some breakfast and barge out,” Meridy Volz said of chatting on her bed. “Whatever we do and wherever we go, we’ve always had an absolute blast ever since she was little.”
We look forward to having a blast with you as we read “Home Baked.” Dig in and enjoy.