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Recollections of a Racketeer: Smuggling hash and cash around the world
Patrick Lane's obsession with drugs began in his early teens.
Nineteenth-century French literature introduced him to a world of hashish, opium and absinthe, which he saw as a way of escaping his boring suburban English existence. Unable to find any hashish as a schoolboy in north London, he went to Morocco for supplies. Between school and university, he hitched around America in the mid-1960s, taking LSD with Timothy Leary. After teaming up with Howard Marks, they smuggled suitcases of hashish out of Afghanistan and Pakistan into Europe and VW campers filled with hashish from Lebanon into California.
During the course of his extraordinary career, he witnessed revolution in Afghanistan, an unsuccessful coup in Greece, the preservation of the monarchy in Nepal and illicit arms deals with Saddam Hussein. Along the way, he befriended Wall Street bankers, Mafia dons (and Oxford dons), hashish-eating goats, dissolute English lords and French peasants.
Recollections of a Racketeer is a rollicking and at times hilarious tale of a life lived on the wrong side of the law.
Patrick Lane was born in London in 1946. He was found guilty of drug-smuggling in 1988 and served two years in prison in the US. Now a full-time writer, he divides his time between France and America.
Nineteenth-century French literature introduced him to a world of hashish, opium and absinthe, which he saw as a way of escaping his boring suburban English existence. Unable to find any hashish as a schoolboy in north London, he went to Morocco for supplies. Between school and university, he hitched around America in the mid-1960s, taking LSD with Timothy Leary. After teaming up with Howard Marks, they smuggled suitcases of hashish out of Afghanistan and Pakistan into Europe and VW campers filled with hashish from Lebanon into California.
During the course of his extraordinary career, he witnessed revolution in Afghanistan, an unsuccessful coup in Greece, the preservation of the monarchy in Nepal and illicit arms deals with Saddam Hussein. Along the way, he befriended Wall Street bankers, Mafia dons (and Oxford dons), hashish-eating goats, dissolute English lords and French peasants.
Recollections of a Racketeer is a rollicking and at times hilarious tale of a life lived on the wrong side of the law.
Patrick Lane was born in London in 1946. He was found guilty of drug-smuggling in 1988 and served two years in prison in the US. Now a full-time writer, he divides his time between France and America.
359 pages, Paperback
Published February 17, 2021
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About the author
Patrick Lane
85 books39 followersPatrick Lane was born in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada, on March 26, 1939. He has no formal education beyond high school in Vernon, B.C. From 1957 to 1968 with his young wife, Mary, he raised three children, Mark, Christopher, and Kathryn, and began working at a variety of jobs, from common labourer, truck driver, Cat skinner, chokerman, boxcar loader, Industrial First-Aid Man in the northern bush, to clerk at a number of sawmills in the Interior of British Columbia. He has been a salesman, office manager, and an Industrial Accountant. In 1968 his first wife divorced him. Much of his life after 1968 has been spent as an itinerant poet, wandering over three continents and many countries. He began writing with serious intent in 1960, practicing his craft late at night in small-town western Canada until he moved to Vancouver in early 1965 to work and to join the new generation of artists and writers who were coming of age in the early Sixties.
In 1966, with bill bissett and Seymour Mayne, he established Very Stone House, publishing the new post-war generation of poets. In 1968, he decided to devote his life exclusively to writing, travelling to South America where he lived for two years. On his return, he established a new relationship with his second wife, Carol, had two more children, Michael and Richard, and settled first in the Okanagan Valley in 1972 and then in 1974 on the west coast of Canada at Middle Point near the fishing village of Pender Harbour on The Sunshine Coast where he worked as a carpenter and building contractor. In 1978, he divorced and went to work as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg where he began his life with the poet, Lorna Crozier. Since then, he has been a resident writer at Concordia University in Montreal, The University of Alberta in Edmonton, the Saskatoon Public Library, and the University of Toronto. He taught English Literature at The University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon from 1986 to 1990, and Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, British Columbia from 1991 to 2004. He is presently retired from institutional teaching and leads private writing retreats as well as teaching at such schools as The Banff Writing Workshops, ‘Booming Ground’ at the University of British Columbia, The Victoria Writing School, and The Sage Hill Experience in Saskatchewan. He and his wife, Lorna Crozier, presently reside in a small community outside Victoria where he gardens and works at his craft.
His poetry, short stories, criticism, and non-fiction have won many prizes over the past forty-five years, including The Governor-General’s Award for “Poems: New & Selected” in 1979, The Canadian Authors Association Award for his “Selected Poems” in 1988, and, in 1987, a “Nellie” award (Canada) and The National Radio Award (USA) for the best public radio program for the script titled “Chile,” co-authored with Lorna Crozier. He has received major awards from The Canada Council, The Ontario Arts Council, The Saskatchewan Arts Board, The Manitoba Arts Board, The Ontario Arts Council, and the British Columbia Arts Board. He has received National Magazine awards for both his poetry and his fiction. He is the author of more than twenty books and he has been called by many writers and critics “the best poet of his generation.”
As a critic and commentator, he appears regularly on CBC, the national radio service in Canada, and on numerous other media outlets across Canada.
He has appeared at literary festivals around the world and has read and published his work in many countries including England, France, the Czech Republic, Italy, China, Japan, Chile, Colombia, the Netherlands, and Russia. His poetry and fiction appear in all major Canadian anthologies of English literature. A critical monograph of his life and writing titled "Patrick Lane,” by George Woodcock, was published by ECW Press.
In 1966, with bill bissett and Seymour Mayne, he established Very Stone House, publishing the new post-war generation of poets. In 1968, he decided to devote his life exclusively to writing, travelling to South America where he lived for two years. On his return, he established a new relationship with his second wife, Carol, had two more children, Michael and Richard, and settled first in the Okanagan Valley in 1972 and then in 1974 on the west coast of Canada at Middle Point near the fishing village of Pender Harbour on The Sunshine Coast where he worked as a carpenter and building contractor. In 1978, he divorced and went to work as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg where he began his life with the poet, Lorna Crozier. Since then, he has been a resident writer at Concordia University in Montreal, The University of Alberta in Edmonton, the Saskatoon Public Library, and the University of Toronto. He taught English Literature at The University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon from 1986 to 1990, and Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, British Columbia from 1991 to 2004. He is presently retired from institutional teaching and leads private writing retreats as well as teaching at such schools as The Banff Writing Workshops, ‘Booming Ground’ at the University of British Columbia, The Victoria Writing School, and The Sage Hill Experience in Saskatchewan. He and his wife, Lorna Crozier, presently reside in a small community outside Victoria where he gardens and works at his craft.
His poetry, short stories, criticism, and non-fiction have won many prizes over the past forty-five years, including The Governor-General’s Award for “Poems: New & Selected” in 1979, The Canadian Authors Association Award for his “Selected Poems” in 1988, and, in 1987, a “Nellie” award (Canada) and The National Radio Award (USA) for the best public radio program for the script titled “Chile,” co-authored with Lorna Crozier. He has received major awards from The Canada Council, The Ontario Arts Council, The Saskatchewan Arts Board, The Manitoba Arts Board, The Ontario Arts Council, and the British Columbia Arts Board. He has received National Magazine awards for both his poetry and his fiction. He is the author of more than twenty books and he has been called by many writers and critics “the best poet of his generation.”
As a critic and commentator, he appears regularly on CBC, the national radio service in Canada, and on numerous other media outlets across Canada.
He has appeared at literary festivals around the world and has read and published his work in many countries including England, France, the Czech Republic, Italy, China, Japan, Chile, Colombia, the Netherlands, and Russia. His poetry and fiction appear in all major Canadian anthologies of English literature. A critical monograph of his life and writing titled "Patrick Lane,” by George Woodcock, was published by ECW Press.
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February 1, 2022
A somewhat rambling version of a life. The sadness of a boy striving for his father's love was the most touching part of the tale as far as this reader was concerned. There are some adventures and some wildness, but somehow the reader seems disconnected from the action.
Displaying 1 of 1 review