'Liam Pieper was raised by his bohemian parents to believe in freedom and creativity, and that there's nothing wrong with smoking a little marijuana to make life more interesting.
'A fast learner, Liam combined hippie self-actualisation with gen Y entrepreneurialism. By his early teens he had a fledgling drug habit, and a thriving business selling pot around the suburbs of Melbourne from the back of his pushbike. He picked up important life skills, like how to befriend a deranged jujitsu master, how to impress his girlfriend's mother by getting arrested in front of her, and how to negotiate pocket money based on how much he was charging his parents for an ounce.
'But from these highs (chemical, financial and otherwise), Liam's life fell to dramatic lows. The muddled flower child became a petty criminal and an amoral coke monster. After a family tragedy and then his arrest on several counts of possession and trafficking, Liam had to consider: had it been a mistake to adopt the practices of a counterculture without any of its ethics?' (Publication summary)
2015 FAW Barbara Ramsden Award Judges' Report:
The Feel-Good Hit of the Year presents the tragicomic pitfalls and pratfalls of the author’s journey from muddled flower child to reformed criminal in a frank, easy-to-read style. Although it takes a while to live up to the promise (on the cover) of an ‘achingly funny’ read, the stranger-than-fiction moments in this memoir are truly hilarious. This memoir is a testament to the author-editor partnership. As Pieper states, ‘My editor was a chiropractor, breaking down the structure so it could move more easily; a field medic sawing away at the gangrene; a psychiatrist giving the book a moral compass as well as a narrative one. She recognised potential that nobody else could see and forced both the author and the publisher to rise to the occasion.’'
