VICE
"To find out more about this secretive narco-economy, I spoke to journalist Emily Brady. Q&A"
The Boston Globe
“It’s a big story. But Brady makes it sing with her prose.”
The Nation
“Emily Brady details in her excellent book...the massive amounts of money and manpower that the United States has expended unsuccessfully battling marijuana.”
Los Angeles Review of Books
“A compelling, detailed look at the life of this highly idiosyncratic and necessarily secretive community.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“Goes where very few female reporters have gone before…Her book reads like a fast-moving work of fiction.”
“Brady joins guest host Kevin Sylvester to talk about the “beautiful little place” she called home for over a year.”
Mother Jones
“An empathetic but unflinching portrait of a community caught in the legalization movement’s crosswinds.”
KQED: Forum with Michael Krasny
“In 2010, journalist Emily Brady decided she would move to Humboldt and live among pot growers. She joins us to talk about her new book, ‘Humboldt: Life on America’s Marijuana Frontier.’ ”
The Week
“The reporter shares the stories that served as inspiration for her book-length portrait of Humboldt, a California region getting rich on marijuana farming.”
The American Prospect
“The inside story about a place where marijuana has been the prime source of the economy for decades.”
Politico
“Emily Brady’s new book…could help educate Americans on what happens in a community based around marijuana.”
The Daily Beast
“Brady picks the right people—and the right county and state—to show how the longstanding battle over the drug has affected all strata of society.”
The Press Democrat
“Brady’s portraits show intimate glimpses of the roots of Humboldt’s marijuana culture, the strengths of the community and the violence intertwined with the illegal marijuana trade.”
Redheaded Blackbelt
“This book gets Humboldt pot culture—particularly Southern Humboldt pot culture.”
Tri-City Weekly
“Brady is no hit-and-run journalist, grabbing the fast story and leaving town with it. Her story shows she was in it for the long haul.”
Kirkus
“Brady spent a year following these four characters and was struck by their nuanced complexities that she depicts with faultless detail.”
Library Journal
“An excellent book; even nonsmokers and those who feel the pot debate is an outlier among national issues will be won over by Brady’s brand of reportage and fine writing.”
Bookish
“Brady told Bookish about the “cannasseurs” who make cannabis their livelihood and passion, about what a million-dollar field of 700 marijuana plants looks and smells like…and why our country has a flawed, “confused relationship” with marijuana.”
Q&A with CBS News
“Jeff Glor talks to Emily Brady about “Humboldt: Life on America’s Marijuana Frontier.”
New York Post
“The author looks at the issue through self-sustaining cabin-dweller Mare, grower Crockett, Sheriff Bob and Emma, whose single mother was jailed on pot charges — and tries to cut through the smoke.”
North Coast Journal
“For more than a year, the young writer lived in Southern Humboldt, exploring questions facing the community: How long can a counterculture exist before it becomes a culture unto itself? What comes after pot? When a community is sustained through secrecy and illegal activities, how does that affect the next generation?”
New York Journal of Books
“The book depicts the centrality of the marijuana industry to the county, as the wine industry is to Napa and Sonoma Counties, and the power of economics in shaping a community culture and individual points of view.”
Bloomberg Pursuits
“What sticks with you are the thoughtful and likable locals Brady encounters. Outlaws or lawmen, they reassure us that ornery American individualism still thrives.”
Publishers Weekly
“In her nonfiction debut, journalist Brady delivers a rare look into the illicit marijuana industry of Northern California’s Humboldt County—a region famed for its controversial herb… Brady has constructed a moving portrait of a culture and a region at a crossroads.”
Kirkus
“Brady ably captures the social complexities of life in a region where dependence on cannabis (and the artificially high prices created by prohibition) is universally understood yet kept concealed… A relaxed yet disturbing look at an alternative lifestyle, its heady profits and its hidden costs.”
Vice
“Interview with Emily Brady, who spent a year living behind the redwood curtain.”
National Geographic Weekend Radio
“The inside story about a place where marijuana has been the prime source of the economy for decades.”