Richard Brautigan
(1935–1984)

Some books arrive on the literary scene at the right place at the right time. When Richard Brautigan's book Trout Fishing in America first hit the shelves in 1967, American society was undergoing profound changes. Traditional modes of thinking and writing were being shaken up by writers who were eager to experiment and to question widely-held assumptions. Brautigan fit the times well. His writing was humorous and irreverent, experimental in its form, yet he also seemed to speak with an authentically American voice. One critic described him as "a kind of cracker-barrel surrealist whose humor is essentially nineteenth century western American."

Though Brautigan came to be seen as the prototypical hippie, with characteristic long hair, wide-brimmed hat, and glasses, his roots lay earlier. Brautigan was a contemporary of the "Beat" writers of the late 1950s, including Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He shared the Beats' love of experimentation and spontaneity. In ten novels and 11 books of poetry, he displayed a sense of playfulness with his conversational style, fantastic scenarios, and unconventional forms. Brautigan's sense of whimsy is expressed in the unusual titles of his books, such as The Octopus Frontier (1960), The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster (1968), and Sombrero Fallout: A Japanese Novel (1976).

Brautigan was influenced by the Beat writers, but in his recurring themes of the frontier and its impact on the imagination, Brautigan also reveals a debt to such classic American writers as Henry David Thoreau and Mark Twain. One critic tried to sum up Brautigan's unusual combination of talents by stating, "No writer you can think of is quite like him today, nor was any writer anytime."

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