"Home Baked," by Alia Volz

“Home Baked” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020), by Alia Volz, is a combination of biography, memoir, San Francisco history, social commentary, political advocacy, and -- at times --humorous romp. Volz tells the story of her mother’s career baking and selling marijuana brownies in San Francisco, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s. Volz’s mother Meridy was a “good girl,” a “square,” at college in Wisconsin before she moved to San Francisco for adventure and freedom, and stumbled upon the opportunity to bake and sell these special treats; her venture was called Sticky Fingers Brownies. She would dress in hippie-type clothing and make her rounds in various San Francisco neighborhoods, selling to regular customers and others. Her friends and later her husband helped in the enterprise, with the procuring of the marijuana, the baking, and the selling. Meridy was fearless, and somehow avoided getting into serious trouble during those years. She often made decisions based on the I Ching. Alia grew up with this, and always felt loved and safe, enjoying the adventures her mother took her along on. The book portrays the atmosphere, spirit and feeling of San Francisco during the 70s. Later, as AIDS became the scourge of the city, Meridy provided her brownies to many who suffered from that disease, easing their symptoms such as pain, nausea, and lack of appetite. Alia also conveys the horrors and sadness of that disease and its destruction of huge numbers of the young people, mostly but not only gay, and their diverse, creative community. She also shows the underside of San Francisco’s freedom and reputation: she tells of the Jim Jones devastation in Guyana, and of the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor – the first openly gay Supervisor – Harvey Milk. As an adult writer, in preparation for writing this book, Volz did extensive research and many interviews, including of her mother and her father, and she has created a book full of descriptions and details of that unique time in a unique city. She has done something that seems difficult to me for a child to do: try to give an honest, accurate portrayal of her parents, their strengths and weaknesses, their eccentricities, and their (Meridy’s and Doug’s) initially close but later troubled relationship with each other (leading to divorce, but in later life to a friendship again). (Parenthetically, I have lived in San Francisco since those days, and I treasure the descriptions in this book of times and events that are very familiar to me, although my life and career have obviously been quite different than those of Meridy.)