The Rickshaw Mystery

I'd been to a bar in San Francisco, where a pretty brunette with long black hair had given me her phone number.  I hadn't asked for the number--she just gave it to me.  I arrived home and fell asleep about 2 a.m.  An hour later I awoke to a scream from the street below of "Hurry!"

I ran to the window of my apartment in time to see a rickshaw being pulled by a teenage boy.  The inhabitant of the rickshaw was a young woman leaning forward in her seat, screaming "Hurry!  We only have five minutes left!"

The vehicle seemed to be breaking all known laws of physics.  The rickshaw's wheels struck sparks on the street, and it left neon trickles in its wake, as if it were approaching the speed of light.

And then it vanished.  There was nothing about the incident in the newspaper the next morning.  I would speculate that not even Cliffs Notes could unravel the mystery of the speeding rickshaw from the night before.  We live in a world teeming with the mysterious, and sometimes there just aren't explanations for things we see and hear.

I did call the brunette, however.  She was a mystery that was solved.  She was a good kisser, and we eventually got married and had children.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

Billy Collins' Introduction to Trout Fishing in America

U.S. Poet Laureate recently wrote the introduction to a new edition of Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, the 1967 breakout novel that made Brautigan popular among those within and without the Beat Generation and the counterculture.

Collins asserts that Trout Fishing in America and Brautigan's writing were not mere "hip stoner babble," but rather a new and nonlinear way to approach reading fiction.  In fact, he said in the interview linked below, the book challenges the very concept of what it is to be a novel.

Collins also believes that the novel resonates in today's culture given the nature of the internet and social media, which feeds readers in small bits and pieces in a very nonlinear way.  This, he points out, is analogous to the brief poems and short stories of Brautigan, as well as the short chapters and, at times, seemingly disjointed prose of the author.

The article, Billy Collins' Introduction to Trout Fishing in America, is also itself linked to an NPR interview.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

Forty Thousand Days

I woke up one morning and realized that I had lived forty thousand days, give or take a few.  I recalled them with surprising clarity since I had dreamt about them during the night.  They were all in color and were filled with dialogue and whirling skirts and motorcycles and schoolyards and other things you would expect to show up in a person's life.  There were also first kisses, pizza, and fishing trips with my father.

Every day had been a jewel.  When I finally got out of bed and poured myself a cup of coffee, I brought them all to the bank and put them in a safe deposit box.  I advise everyone I meet to do the same.  Life is full of twists and turns.  Bygone days are treasure.  After all, you never know when you might need one again.

by William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Lost Souls Foundation

Charlie had always been fascinated by old black and white photographs, especially those with dozens of people walking down the streets of big cities, like New York at the turn of the century, that century being the twentieth.  Nameless faces stared from the photographs, but everyone, of course, had a story, a life lost to the ages except for a few grainy images in the pictures.  Who were the people in front of the deli, the market, or the dry cleaner?

Charlie married Claire, who was off-the-charts psychic.  She could touch any photograph and immediately know the history of everyone pictured: "That's Amy Johnston, born in 1904.  She was a seamstress, had four children by Clarence Johnston, and died in Teaneck, New Jersey in 1987."

Charlie started collecting old black and white photographs by the thousands.  He and Claire bought an abandoned library outside of Poughkeepsie and set up shop, calling their operation The Lost Souls Foundation.  People from all over the country came to the library to learn about their relatives, who Claire listed in newspapers to alert the general public of the names she mystically retrieved by touching the old photos.

Charlie was ecstatic.  He discovered the backstories for all the faces that silently peered at him from a bygone era.  An internet company tried to buy out Charlie and Claire, but they declined.  Restoring the ancestry of people required a personal touch.  The Lost Souls Foundation sees people by appointment in the old library in Poughkeepsie so that they can sit down at oak tables and connect with their parents, grandparents, and siblings.  Many people weep for joy.

by William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Unified Field Theory

Dr. Wilbur Danforth, professor and reclusive scientist, had spent a lifetime searching for the Unified Field Theory, the Holy Grail of physics.  Such a theory would seal the deal on science's understanding of how everything worked.  The whole shebang.  The theory would unite gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces within the atom.

At the age of seventy-one, Wilbur fell in love, got married, and left his scientific pursuits.  His lovely bride was named Alice, whose gentle touch dispelled Wilbur's lifelong loneliness, his winters of discontent.  In doing so, he discovered the Unified Field Theory, which could be described in a word: lovingkindness.  He published his results in a final nod to academia since he thought people should know of such an astounding discovery.  He was universally ridiculed.

The criticism didn't bother Wilbur in the least.  When he waltzed with Alice, he knew exactly what held everything together.

by William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

Rearview Mirror

Isaac Greenbaum, a dry cleaner by profession, lived in Manhattan.  Like most New Yorkers in The New Age of Caution, Bob wore a neck-and-shoulder-mounted rearview mirror so he could be on the lookout for muggers attacking from behind. 

Isaac walked sluggishly one morning after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer.  He looked in his rearview mirror out of habit and saw the Grim Reaper, carrying his sickle and dressed in black robe and hood, gaining on him.  Isaac knew he was going to die, but he hadn't made any preparations.  He broke into a run, the Reaper in hot pursuit as the pair weaved in and out of pedestrian traffic.

The Grim Reaper was just a few feet behind the terminal Greenbaum when Isaac ducked into the first door on his right, which was the entrance to The Laugh Track Comedy Club on the upper east side.  The Reaper stopped dead in his tracks.  He wasn't allowed inside any establishment where mirth ruled the day.

For the next twenty years, Isaac Greenbaum lived in The Laugh Track Comedy Club, not daring to leave.  He occasionally peeked through the front door, frequently noting the Grim Reaper standing across the street, tapping his right foot in frustration.

During his long tenure as janitor for the Laugh Track, Isaac came to a startling realization: he hadn't died.  In fact, he felt great.  Constant laughing at the onstage comedians had destroyed the awful tumor that had claimed rights to his liver.  He supposed he could have safely left since he'd been cured, but he enjoyed the simple, easy life of sweeping and laughing.

A rearview mirror and endless comedy had saved the life of Isaac Greenbaum.

by William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Ghost of Richard Brautigan by William Hammett

The Ghost of Richard Brautigan is a novel by William Hammett published by Word Wrangler Publishing in March, 2015.  An earlier (and shorter) version of the book was published in 2000 under the title Salamander Illusions.

The book uses the same short-chapter format of the novels of Richard Brautigan.  It employs satire, dark humor, and a surrealistic style at times, although the plot is far more straightforward and accessible than any of Brautigan's novels, and the prose style itself does not demonstrate the elliptical quality of Brautigan's own prose.

In the novel, Lamont Bistro, a Gulf War vet and writing instructor, marries Bourbon Street exotic dancer Jaguar Montaigne.  He is forty-five; Jaguar is nineteen.  While the couple lives in Louisiana's Honey Island Swamp and conducts swamp tours, Bistro is visited on a regular basis by the ghost of Richard Brautigan, who gives him advice on writing as well as his personal life.

As the novel progresses, Brautigan challenges Bistro to write a novel about his young wife, snake-handling evangelicals, a swamp monster, Babe Ruth, Mount Kilimanjaro, a gaudy theme park called Gatorworld, a deity named Bob, junkyards, and the rock group Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

The characters in the novel are believable, yet they represent the eccentricities of a world that, in the course of the novel, is diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

As Bistro writes, however, the absurdity of his life situation causes him to wonder if he himself has become a character in a surrealistic novel by the late Richard Brautigan since Brautigan, during his ghostly visits, seems to be orchestrating much of the plot.

William Hammett is the author of numerous novels, short stories, and poetry.  His poetry has been published in numerous hard-copy literary journals around the country.  His short story "Orphans" about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was published in the Rose and Thorn Journal.  His other novels include Street Magic, John Lennon and the Mercy Street Café, Rimsky Rises (YA), and Circling Goes the Wind (middle reader).  One Good Thought is scheduled for publication later in 2015.  John Lennon and the Mercy Street Café has been taught in university course on magical realism.

Hammett is a freelance writer, editor, and ghostwriter, occasionally publishing under his own name.  He held editorial positions with various publications, wrote feature articles for New Orleans weekly newspapers, and taught writing and literature for twenty-two years at colleges and universities.

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

Books about Richard Brautigan

The definitive biography of Richard Brautigan is Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan (Counterpoint, 2013) by William Hjortsberg.  The following is a list of books about Richard Brautigan.

Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan (Counterpoint, 2013) by William Hjortsberg

You Can't Catch Death: A Daughter's Memoir (St. Martin's Press, 2000) by Ianthe Brautigan

Richard Brautigan: Essays on the Writings and Life (McFarland & Co., 2007) by John F. Barber

~William Hammettr

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan

Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan, daughter of writer Richard Brautigan, was born on March 25, 1960 in San Francisco.  Her mother was Virginia Dionne Alder.  She spent most of her time with her father after her parents separated.  She traveled with him frequently to Japan and Hawaii.

In her book You Can't Catch Death: A Daughter's Memoir, published by St. Martin's Press in 2000, she writes of her early life, much of it spent with her father and members of the Beat Generation.  She also discusses the impact that her father's suicide had on her.  The book is written using the short chapter format found in her father's novels.

Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan teaches English and Creative Writing in California.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan

The prose style of Richard Brautigan is lean and economical, to say the least.  Many have described Brautigan's style has unpretentious and a prime example of post-modernism.  He said exactly what he wanted to say and no more.  This is exemplified by his extremely short poems, short stories, and the chapters in his novels.  Brautigan is also said to have bridged the gap between the beat generation and the culture of the 1960s, although he carried on the literary traditions of the counterculture until his death in 1984.

Brautigan, perhaps because of his birth in the Pacific Northwest, had a strong tie with nature, and a majority of his work demonstrated this connection.  The most obvious example is Trout Fishing in America.  In general, the themes of Brautigan's prose is not terribly optimistic, but rather accentuates what the author regarded as the failure of the American Dream and its attendant values.  While his prose is often humorous and playful, his themes demonstrate pessimism to the astute reader.  In this sense, he has been compared to Mark Twain, the dark humorist who was suspicious of mankind and its foolishness.

Because of the distinctive nature of Brautigan's prose and its seeming quirkiness, he initially found it difficult to find publishers for his work.  He published in many small presses and was even known to hand out self-published material on the street.  City Lights Press, founded by beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, published some of Brautigan's earlier writings.  Kurt Vonnegut discovered Brautigan's work and recommended him to Delacorte Press, which published some of Brautigan's early novels.  After the publication of Trout Fishing in America, mainstream presses such as Simon and Schuster began to publish Brautigan's novels.

An in-depth discussion of Brautigan's prose and literary influence may be found at the Poetry Foundation at Richard Brautigan: a Biography

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan

Many of Richard Brautigan's poems were neither collected in his ten books of poetry nor published in any journal or magazine.  Many poems, however, were found among his papers upon his death in 1984.  They are currently curated by his estate or included in collections held at various libraries.  A list of these poems may be found at Unpublished Poems. 

A partial list of unpublished poems is as follows:

Circus
Daughter of the Farm
Dream
End
The Eternal Automobile
The First Prize
The Peacock Song
The Fourth of July in December
Fragment
It's Kite's Time
The Love Life of Adam
Twelvetrees
A Lyric for Coffee Dulcimer
Mammal Fortress
The Memory of Gate Creek
My Heart Laid Bare
Milena
Rockets
Sanctuary
Syntaxial Weather
The Tired Poet
To Eat on the Hawk
The Twentieth of November Street
The Whale Dance from Finnegans Wake

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan published many poems in his career that were never included in any of his well-known collections.  For complete information on the publishing history and dates of these poems, please go the external link Uncollected Poetry.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Complete Archive of Richard Brautigan's Collected Poetry

The following external link will lead the interested reader to the publication dates, publishing history, and full text for all of Richard Brautigan's collected poetry.  The site, Collected Poetry of Richard Brautigan, is perhaps the most comprehensive on the internet.  By clicking on the links for his various poetry collection and then scrolling down, you will find the information described above.

William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work

The following links will take readers to sites devoted to the life and work of Richard Brautigan.

The Richard Brautigan Archives
Richard Brautigan Bibliography and Archive
The Richard Brautgan Library
Richard Brautigan: The Poetry Foundation

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

Richard Brautigan Timeline: 1950 to 1984

The following provides a detailed chronology of the life of Richard Brautigan, including works and publication dates.

Richard Brautigan Timeline: 1950 to 1984

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Richard Brautigan Library

In line with the vision of Richard Brautigan, The Brautigan Library collects unpublished manuscripts to provide a home for "the unwanted, the lyrical and haunted volumes of American writing," a home that exists without judgment as to content or literary technique.  Its curator is Dr. John F. Barber of The Creative Media and Digital Culture Program at Washington State University.  The collection is part of a collaborative research project with The Clark County Historical Museum.

Publishing is not the goal of The Richard Brautigan Library.  Rather, it exists to provide a home for the creative endeavors of its authors, published or unpublished.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Novels of Richard Brautigan

The novels of Richard Brautigan are some of the most distinctive in American literature and evolved from the general themes and counterculture values of the Beat generation.  Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, founder of City Lights Press, was a friend of Brautigan and published some of his early work.  After Brautigan was read by novelist Kurt Vonnegut, the latter recommended Brautigan to Delacorte Press, which led to more conventional publishing contracts.

The novels are characterized by both playfulness as well as dark satire and pessimism.  Most are surrealistic in nature, exhibiting outrageous yet appropriate metaphors in the actual prose.  A strong thread of Zen Buddhism runs throughout most of the novels and can best be seen in Sombrero Fallout: A Japanese Novel.  The novels also demonstrate the author's affinity with nature, perhaps a result of his birth in the Pacific Northwest and his time spent in Montana.

After the novelty of Brautigan's work passed, interest in his work had declined by the 1980s.  Ferlinghetti said, "As an editor I was always waiting for Richard to grow up as a writer."  At the time of his death, it seemed as if critics, editors, and readers had abandoned Brautigan. 

Ironically, the years following his death would see an abiding interest in Brautigan's novels, which continue to be reprinted and read as of this writing in 2015.  Brautigan is often compared to Twain, Vonnegut, and Tom Robbins.  Others have called him "a Hemingway for hippies."  New generations of readers continue to discover the novels of Richard Brautigan, which challenge the way a reader should approach plot and narrative every bit as much as the works of James Joyce.

The following novels by Richard Brautigan are discussed on this site and accompanied by the basic publishing history of each work.

A Confederate General from Big Sur
Dreaming of Babylon: A Private Eye Novel 1942
The Hawkline Monster
So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away
Sombrero Fallout: A Japanese Novel
The Tokyo-Montana Express
Trout Fishing in America
An Unfortunate Woman
In Watermelon Sugar
Willard and His Bowling Trophies: A Perverse Mystery

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan

In Watermelon Sugar is a novel by Richard Brautigan.  It was published in 1968 by the Four Seasons Foundation.  The novel was written between May 13, 1964 and July 19, 1964.  Notes for the novel, however, date to notebooks Brautugan kept as early as 1960.

Brautigan showed the novel to several writer friends for editorial input, but they all declined to comment on the novel.  He was contractually obligated to offer the manuscript to Grove Press, but he declined to do so since Grove had rejected Trout Fishing in America.  Upon publication, the novel was dedicated to Don Allen, Joanne Kryger, and Michael Mclure.

The novel is the story of a commune, the main house of which is called iDEATH.  Many articles in the environment are made of watermelon sugar.  Each day reveals a different-colored sun in the sky, producing, in turn, different-colored watermelons.

Margaret, a former lover of the narrator, begins to keep company with a character named inBOIL.  They visit The Forgotten Works, a trash heap containing artifacts from an ancient civilization.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

Willard and His Bowling Trophies: A Perverse Mystery by Richard Brautigan

Willard and His Bowling Trophies: A Perverse Mystery is a novel by Richard Brautigan.  It was published by Simon and Schuster in 1975.

Set in 1970s San Francisco, the main character is a papier mache bird sitting in an apartment with a collection of bowling trophies stolen from the home of the Logan brothers three years earlier.  The human occupants of the apartment are John and Pat, who have recently seen a Greta Garbo movie.  Their neighbors are Bob and Constance, an unhappily married couple.  While searching for their missing bowling trophies, the Logan brothers become angry and vengeful.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away by Richard Brautigan

So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away is a novel by Richard Barutigan and was published by Delacorte Press in 1982.

In 1979, the narrator of the novel remembers events from his life in 1948, when he was thirteen.  He lives in the suburbs in Oregon, collecting beer bottles, fishing in a pond on the edge of town, and doing odd jobs for neighbors for money.

The catalyst for the remembered events is the narrator's purchase of bullets instead of a hamburger.  While shooting at apples in an abandoned orchard, he accidentally kills a friend.  Although acquitted, the narrator is bullied, his waitress mother doesn't get tips, and the two are forced to move to another town.  It is believed that some of the characters and scenes are reminiscent of Brautigan's own childhood.

Each chapter begins with the words "So the wind won't blow it all away."

A short film based on the novel, produced by Ianthe Brautigan and her husband, was shown at the New York Film Festival in June, 2000.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

Dreaming of Babylon: A Private Eye Novel 1942 by Richard Brautigan

Dreaming of Babylon: A Private Eye Novel 1942 is a novel by Richard Brautigan published by Delacorte Press in 1977.  The main character of the black comedy, C. Card, does investigative work when not dreaming of Babylon.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

An Unfortunate Woman: A Journey by Richard Brautigan

An Unfortunate Woman: A Journey is a novel by Richard Brautigan written in 1982.  It was published posthumously in French by Bourgois Press in 1994 under the title Diary of a Return from Troy.  An English edition was published by St. Martin's Press in 2000.

The novel is written in diary format, with chapters written as diary entries.  The main character is Nikki Arai.  While suffering from cancer, Nikki grieves the death of her best friend, who committed suicide.  Nikki dies of cancer at the end of the novel.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Tokyo-Montana Express by Richard Brautigan

The Tokyo-Montana Express is a novel by Richard Brautigan published by Delacorte Press in 1980.  The book is comprised of 131 chapters, which are short stories written by Brautigan from1976 to 1978.  During these years, Brautigan traveled back and forth from Japan to his Montana ranch.  An explanatory note at the beginning of the novel explains that each chapter is a station on the tracks used by the Tokyo-Montana Express.  The narrative first-person "I" used in the novel is intended to be the voice of each of the stations.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

Novels Published by Richard Brautigan

The following novels were written by Richard Brautigan.  The publication date is listed for each.

A Confederate General from Big Sur (1964)

Trout Fishing in America (1967)

In Watermelon Sugar (1968)

The Abortion: An Historical Romance ((1966)

The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Romance  (1974)

Willard and His Bowling Trophies: A Perverse Mystery (1975)

Sombrero Fallout: A Japanese Novel (1976)

Dreaming of Babylon: A Private Eye Novel 1942 (1977)

The Tokyo-Montana Express (1980)

So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away (1982)

An unfortunate Woman: A Journey (1994))

All of the above are short novels and sometimes classified as novellas.  Each uses Brautigan's trademark short-chapter format, as well as his satire and wry humor.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan

The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster was Richard Brautigan's seventh poetry collection.  The collection contained ninety-eight poems, including thirty-eight that had not been previously collected.  The rest of the poems were taken from Brautigan's five previous poetry collections.  Fifty hardcover editions were released with the paperback copy of the book.

The title alludes to the loss of life and potential created by the birth control pill and the Spring Hill mine disaster.  Brautigan wrote "When you take your pill/it's like a mine disaster./I think of all the people/lost inside you."  (The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, Four Seasons Foundation, 1968)

The Spring Hill mine disaster occurred in Springhill, Nova Scotia in 1958 and was immortalized in song by Pete Seeger and the Weavers.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Galilee Hitch-Hiker by Richard Brautigan

The Galilee Hitch-Hiker was Richard Brautigan's second collection of poetry and was published by White Rabbit Press in 1958.  The 200 hand-sewn editions were sold by Brautigan directly to pedestrians on the street and by City Lights Bookstore (run by City Lights Press, founded by beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti).  The collection was reissued by Cranium Press, with a print run of 700 in 1966.  Brautigan signed sixteen copies of the re-released book.

The book consists of one poem divided into nine subtitled sections.  The Galilee Hitch-Hiker was reprinted in Brautigan's The Pill Versus the Springhill Mining Disaster.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact

The Poetry of Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan wrote a great many poems during his literary career.  His first book of poetry was The Return of the Rivers, published in 1957, and was a single poem.  The Galilee Hitch-Hiker and Lay the Marble Tea followed in 1958 and 1959 respectively.

Brautigan wrote short pieces in the form of broadsides published by the Communication Company.  In the late 1960s, he wrote twenty-three short pieces for Rolling Stone.  He also recorded his work for an album for the Beatles' Zapple label.  The recording was never released because the Beatles' manager, Allen Klein, terminated the label.  It was released later under the title of Listening to Richard Brautigan on the Harvest Records label.

Cowell Press published seven of Brautigan's broadside poems in book format in 1974 under the title Seven Watermelon Suns, an allusion to the plot of Brautigan's novel In Watermelon Sugar.

Many of Brautigan's poems were never included in his collections of poetry, although many were published individually in various small journals.  Several more were never published but were found among his papers at the time of his death and are curated by Brautigan's estate.

The following collections of poetry were published by novelist, poet, and short story writer Richard Brautigan.

The Return of the Rivers -- 1958

The Galilee Hitch-Hiker -- 1958

Lay the Marble Tea -- 1959

The Octopus Frontier -- 1960

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace -- 1967

Please Plant This Book -- 1968

The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster -- 1969

Rommel Drives on Deep into the Desert -- 1970

Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork -- 1971

June 30, June 30 --  1978

Most of the above collections use poems previously printed in various journals.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact