"The Last Resort"

For years, Chico novelist Emily Gallo (emilygallo.com) has been chronicling the lives of an ever-widening circle of misfits. Sipping "endless cups of Earl Grey tea" at the Tin Roof Café, Gallo writes with non-judgmental simplicity as her characters try to make their way in the world.

"The Last Resort" ($12.95 in paperback, self-published; also for Amazon Kindle) is the sixth in the series. The title refers to a pot farm near Garberville "in the lush Emerald Triangle" owned by guitarist Dutch Bogart, who moved there in the early seventies. 

"Local musicians who went on to become famous themselves started playing his songs and his course was set. His guitar style was southern blues, but his songwriting fell neatly into the more lucrative rock and roll category."

Now, "disillusioned and drained by the bright lights and groupie mentality, he decided he had enough money and recognition" and so he came to the farm. Others would come as well, each with a story. 

The harvest over, the two "trimmigrants" from Quebec are preparing to move on. The aging Homer, whose Parkinson's is mitigated by iPod music and vaping "Kobain Kush," a marijuana type "high in THC," remains on the farm. Soon Juniper arrives with a young woman named Scarlett, Juniper's "younger foster sister" who "ended up entangled in a sex ring after I was released from the system."

Then Buster Fingerpickin' McCracken shows up, the blues guitarist still sprightly. Luther, "a tall, handsome, lanky African-American in his late thirties," who spent twenty years in San Quentin before being freed by the Innocence Project, finds his way to the farm as well. As do Leo and Tasha, he a union organizer infatuated with Tasha, she a Vegas card dealer and call girl.

As Dutch makes plans for a music festival (featuring Bonnie Raitt, Elvin Bishop and Charlie Musselwhite), fire sweeps through the area, but the farm survives. So do most of the friendships in this motley crew as they find the "last resort" is the start of something new.

An interview with Gallo is scheduled for Nancy's Bookshelf with Nancy Wiegman on Wednesday, March 18 at 10:00 a.m. on North State Public Radio, mynspr.org (KCHO 91.7 FM).