Brautigan, Richard

(US, 1935–84)

Born in the Pacific North-west, Brautigan moved to San Francisco and became one of the most distinctive writers of the Hippy era during the 1960s. His playful, easy-reading style of short chapters, simple deadpan language garnished with outlandish similes and casual irony, was quickly popular through early novels such as A Confederate General From Big Sur (1964) and especially Trout Fishing in America (1967). The latter novel follows a quest for ideal trout fishing with many digressions, becoming a metaphorical journey through America which ends in a wrecking-yard with Nature being sold by the foot. Sombrero Fallout (1976) is another jokey but ultimately pessimistic narrative, telling two stories in tandem. In one, a sombrero hat falls mysteriously from the sky and causes a chain of violent events in a small town; in the other, the author of that story, a heart-broken humorist, mourns the departure of his Japanese girlfriend.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Kerouac  JS