Anarcho Grow

Anarcho Grow (2010) is the debut novel by T.A. Sedlak, about a low-key outlaw who brings wealth to a small community in Costa Rica and finds himself in the ire of the United States' government. The setting moves throughout Costa Rica with two chapters set in the United States. Themes it encompasses include, anarchism, its history, philosophy, practicality, and possibility for the future, socialism and the red scare stigma still associated with it, the atrocities of modern imperialism and capitalism, the ability to use prohibition for individual and societal gain, and the difficulties of creating change within a political system.
Plot summary
Anarcho Grow begins in 2006 with protagonist Benjamin Starosta walking through the Juan Santamaría International Airport in Costa Rica. The reader's told that Ben has “visa papers giving him permission to teach English in Costa Rica for the next four months.” We're, however, led to believe the visa is an alibi. Starosta meets with a tico, Estéban, who appears to be an old friend. They banter about Latin American politics, literature, and Starosta's recent trip to South America, revealing Starosta's character. Ben tells his friend his trip to South America was partaken to acquire tea of coca leaf, and the chapter ends with the cryptic line from Estéban, “What type of person journeys to another country just for tea?”
Next the reader's introduced to C.I.A. agents Ron Numbers and Bill Larimore who we learn are attempting to locate Starosta. Larimore serves as Ben Starosta's foil, and even seems to take precedent over Ben as the central character at times.
Ron and Bill draw closer as the story fleshes itself out. Ben had done volunteer work in the small community of Quebrada Grande during college. He then returned and along with another member of the community, Chi Cho, began guerrilla growing, clandestine outdoor marijuana cultivation, in the rainforest around Quebrada Grande. Sedlak shows us this process through three flashback chapters interspersed within the story set in 2001 in the marijuana patches. We also learn that Starosta is transporting the marijuana to Tamarindo where he gives it to Charles, who we later learn is Ben's brother, for transporting to the United States for the highest profit.
Ron and Bill's arrival in Cost Rica begins Bill's transformation toward more of a central character. Though an unattractive, fowl-mouthed man with a penchant for violence, alcohol, prostitutes, and greasy food, the reader gains insight into his mind and his humanness.
During Ron and Bill's time in Costa Rica, it comes to light that money from Ben's endeavor is being used to form cooperative businesses within Quebrada Grande and communities in several other countries, including the United States. Some money may even have went to the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in the Chiapas region of southern Mexico. The narrator tells us, “He had thought of Anarchist Catalonia, hoping he could help Anarchism flourish as it once had there.”
Sedlak shows us the difficulty of political change, however, and eventually the hammer comes down on Starosta, as Ron and Bill throw the beaten bodies of Ben Starosta and his girlfriend, Daniela, into the back of their vehicle. Ron injects them with ketamine for safe traveling, and the next time Ben or Daniela are featured in chapters the reader witnesses their ketamine visions.
Ben is transported to a black site in Colombia where he's interrogated and subjected to sleep deprivation and, finally, water boarding. At one point, Ben attempts suicide, but is stopped by Bill and Ron. Eventually, he consciously stifles his gag reflex during water boarding, leaving the conscious world behind as his ketamine vision prepared him for.
Daniela is eventually released and decides to continue the program that Ben started, Anarcho Grow. Chi Cho closes the book with the words, “It's dangerous... But something significant can come from it.” And, the reader is left with an epigraph from Rage Against The Machine's Maria on the spirit, Starosta's spirit and the Anarchist spirit, that can't be crushed.
The story's epilogue gives one last chilling look at Ben Starosta. The reader learns he was not killed but instead experienced sever brain damage. The final view of Starosta is of a mentally-handicapped gringo being taken care of by the people of a neighborhood in Bogotá, Colombia.
Reception
Anarcho Grow received early praise from historian Howard Zinn but was overlooked by much of mainstream media. It achieved great success within marijuana culture, gaining positive reviews from nearly every marijuana industry magazine. Treating Yourself called it "the Best Stoner Story to Date, and Steve Bloom, former editor of High Times and current editor of CelebStoner, called it "the best marijuana adventure novel since T.C. Boyle's Budding prospects." The Midwest Book Review said it was "highly recommended."

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