toke-lit

June 9, 2011 8:43 PM

What are some contemporary novels about potheads or that feature weed-smoking?

I'm looking for fiction from the past ten to twenty years that features marijuana use, if not prominently, at least more than in passing.

posted by fryman to media & arts (19 answers total)

This is just out side of your range, but Vineland.
posted by pullayup at 8:49 PM on June 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Infinite Jest has characters who are addicted to many types of drugs but some of its most memorable passages are about marijuana: Hal, Kate Gompert, and Erdedy.
posted by acidic at 8:53 PM on June 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Drop City.
posted by J. Wilson at 8:59 PM on June 9, 2011

Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City is pretty much built on it.
posted by mlle valentine at 9:00 PM on June 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

pretty much any Spider Robinson novel
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:01 PM on June 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Though published in 1969, The Process by Brion Gysin should fit your criteria nicely!
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 9:38 PM on June 9, 2011

'Rule of the Bone' by Russell Banks.
'Already Dead' by Denis Johnson. Johnson's novels aren't about drugs, but there are quite a bit in almost all of his novels. (Highly recommended: read 'Angels')
posted by TheRedArmy at 9:42 PM on June 9, 2011

The Savages by Don Winslow
posted by mullacc at 9:45 PM on June 9, 2011

Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:01 PM on June 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Bongwater by Michael Hornburg.
posted by asciident at 10:05 PM on June 9, 2011

Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson, just published but set in the 1980s.
posted by Violet Hour at 10:20 PM on June 9, 2011

Tom Robbins' entire oeuvre, iirc.
posted by EatTheWeak at 1:00 AM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice.
posted by tangerine at 1:44 AM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Budding Prospects by TC Boyle is about growing pot. I can't recall a lot of smoking in it, but it's about pot culture. His Drop City has already been mentioned up thread.
posted by OmieWise at 3:43 AM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Mark Poirier, Goats.
posted by escabeche at 5:09 AM on June 10, 2011

Home Land.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:15 AM on June 10, 2011

The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter. (Not just use, but dealing as well.)
posted by lovermont at 5:52 AM on June 10, 2011

Disclaimer: self-reference. Post-Apocalypse Dead Letter Office features a letter from a dedicated (and rather jerk-ish) pot farmer in southern Missouri, and growing and smoking marijuana is discussed in several other letters.
posted by cog_nate at 7:17 AM on June 10, 2011

Mr. Nice by Howard Marks
posted by humboldt32 at 10:45 AM on June 10, 2011