Review by Kirkus Book Review
An eastern entrepreneur goes west with calamitous results. In 2018, 61-year-old Murphy, a self-described "acolyte of the Atlantic establishment," moved to Colorado. He assumed that because all his other business startups had been successful that he had the savvy and vision to make a fortune growing legal hemp. His timing was prescient, his plan impeccable, his future fragrant. What could go wrong? Just about everything, it seems. Murphy, the author of The Long Haul, is an insightful and incisive observer, not least regarding the cultural differences between his native, class-conscious New England and the more egalitarian Colorado. Though he felt at home with the West's enterprising spirit, he knew the reality: "There's a reason the word 'dream' appears upon that mythic American pedestal." The author had his reservations about the hemp business, had no experience in agriculture, and could obtain little useful data on hemp growing; for the most part, he was flying blind. Planting crops on a rocky alluvial plain in a semiarid environment was not ideal, but the prospect proved irresistible. He chronicles his rise and fall with a wicked sense of humor, especially useful in skewering persistent myths of every kind, whether business, ecological, or historical. However, his withering critique of the rugged individualist frontier malarkey and its damaging effects on our society is no laughing matter. Murphy is a capitalist to the core but no fan of what he calls the plague of "corporatocracy," whose misdeeds he savages. He also tells the true story behind America's hopelessly misguided war on drugs. Murphy spent 20 years as a long-haul mover, which acquainted him with America's "underclass," and few could rival his assessment of the immigrant community and our treatment of it. He never tires "of listening to the life stories of people inhabiting the bottom of the American Dream," and his book is all the richer for it. An engaging cautionary tale with much to teach about business and many relevant socioeconomic issues. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
