AUTHOR RETURNS TO MICHIGAN ROOTS TO WRITE A TRUE TRAGEDY

There's no real way to define what Dean Kuipers felt when he read an
article about two tragic deaths on a farm in Michigan. No simple
phrase explained why the story stayed with him. But it did and he
became convinced a thorough investigation was necessary.

"I read that story off the Kalamazoo Gazette and the hook was
instant," says Kuipers, 42. "You just get a feeling about a story. I
felt connected to it right away."

The result, five years later, is Kuipers' book, "Burning Rainbow
Farm: How a Stoner Utopia Went up in Smoke." Kuipers tells the tale
of the ill-fated farm and its owners Rolland Rohm and Tom Crosslin in
the small southwest Michigan town of Vandalia.

Rainbow Farm was a gathering place for many members of dozens of
subcultures - homosexuals (Rohm and Crosslin were partners), militia
members, evangelicals, extreme conservatives and different
anti-establishment groups among them. But mostly it was known as a
haven for those who enjoyed smoking pot.

It was the marijuana that led then-Cass County prosecutor Scott Teter
to target Rainbow Farm. Teter brought in several task forces, from
national and local government, to help shut the farm down.

Kuipers weaves an intricate tale that culminates with Crosslin
setting the farm on fire - a blaze designed to make a statement to
the government that his property and his life belonged to him.

During a standoff with law enforcement, Crosslin and Rohm were shot
and killed by the FBI. Townspeople were stunned and many felt the FBI
had overreacted.

Sound familiar? Well, it probably would have, but the event took
place just a few days before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001
and the story got lost in the news coverage of those attacks.

But it wasn't lost on Kuipers.

A native of Mattawan, a small town just outside of Kalamazoo, Kuipers
is a graduate from Kalamazoo College where he studied English, mixed
with some science.

He left Michigan for New York and a job writing for Spin magazine. He
later moved to San Francisco to run the magazine's West Coast
operations and then to Los Angeles where he continued his career as
an editor and journalist. He now works as an editor at the Los
Angeles CityBeat. So work on the book was a homecoming of sorts for
Kuipers, though he says there's no nostalgia attached to this book.

His desire was simple: find the truth of the events that transpired
and write about them honestly.

The story originally was meant to be a magazine piece - it was, in
fact, published in 2003 in Playboy. But with the wealth of
information Kuipers had acquired there was more than enough for a book.

Kuipers spent a great deal of time in the town of Vandalia and the
surrounding area, interviewing more than 300 people.

"We'd sit at the table and have a great discussion," he says. "That's
very satisfying. It's not because I conquered or anything, but
because they trusted me."

Although Jim Crosslin, Tom's father, refused to be interviewed, "the
Crosslin family treated me very nicely," Kuipers says. "A couple of
others I have a pretty warm relationship with."

Spending time in Vandalia let Kuipers added texture to the book.

"The smells are really important to me," he says. "The way the air
feels in Michigan is really different than the way it feels in Los
Angeles. I like to know what the birds are and what the plants are in
the places I'm at and you can't know that without going."

Kuipers made sure his book tour ran through Vandalia and he was
reunited with many of his sources and friends. He says that overall
the response to the book has been exactly what he wanted.

"So far it's been pretty good," he says. "I'm pretty pleased."

Kuipers doesn't expect to trade journalism for a career as a novelist
anytime soon. The types of books he's interested in writing are all
literary non-fiction, and being in a newsroom helps him to keep on
top of the stories he likes to read. And though the writing process
of "Burning Rainbow Farm" may have come to an end, he says, the book
will be with him forever.

"They never end," he says. "You don't get to write about it and just
move on. It's part of my life now."

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