Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan , 1935-84, American novelist and poet, b. Tacoma, Wash. He was a counterculture hero of the 1960s and 70s and his work is an indictment of America's cultural environment. Influenced by writers of the beat generation , he exhibits a hippie sensibility in his extremely original and loosely constructed fiction, his gently passive protagonists, his droll sense of comedy, and the touch of the surreal that often marks his work. His first novel, A Confederate General from Big Sur (1964), was followed by Trout Fishing in America (1967), which became a national bestseller. Other novels include In Watermelon Sugar (1968), Dreaming of Babylon (1977), and The Tokyo-Montana Express (1980). Brautigan also wrote short stories, many collected in Revenge of the Lawn (1971). Among his volumes of poetry are The Pill Versus the Springfield Mine Disaster (1968) and Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork (1976). Brautigan committed suicide in 1984. A book of poems and stories (1999) and a novel-journal (2000) were posthumously published.

Bibliography: See K. Abbott, Downstream from Trout Fishing in America (1989), and I. Brautigan, You Can't Catch Death (2000); studies by M. Chénetier (1983), E. H. Foster (1983), C. Grossman (1986), and J. Boyer (1987); annotated bibliography by J. F. Barber (1990).

Brautigan, Richard (1935–84), San Francisco author, whose loosely conceived short “novels” composed of comic, whimsical, and surrealistic sketches of gently anarchic, unselfish, and Beat ways of life include A Confederate General from Big Sur (1964), Trout Fishing in America (1967), In Watermelon Sugar (1968), The Abortion: An Historical Romance (1971), Revenge of the Lawn (1971), The Hawkins Monster: A Gothic Western (1974), Willard and His Bowling Trophies: A Perverse Mystery (1975), and Sombrero Fallout: A Japanese Novel (1976). Dreaming of Babylon: A Private Eye Novel (1977), The Tokyo‐Montana Express (1980), and So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away (1992) show sadness mingling with humor, as in his other novels. The Pill Versus the Springfield Mine Disaster (1968), Rommel Drives on Deep into Egypt (1970), Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork (1976), and June 30th, June 30th (1978) collect brief poems. He committed suicide by shooting himself.