I have been a devotee of Richard Brautigan’s work since I originally came across it in the late sixties and introduced it to my wife when we first met some years later. We even met Brautigan briefly in person when we were on holiday in San Francisco and he was attending a literary event. However, even allowing for the artificial and stilted nature of much social discourse associated with such a literary occasion, it was clear that he was extremely ill at ease with the celebrity status attached to his attendance there. However, he agreed to provide an autograph which we asked for by way of breaking the uneasy awkwardness of his social presence among his many admirers. Hence, we were pleasantly surprised to recently come across it while ‘clearing out’ a writing desk drawer and we are still keen to treasure it still as it illustrates well the lightness of touch but extreme unease of the person who supplied it.

Over the years I collected Richard Brautigan’s entire published novels and some of his poetry and they have retained special warmth for me due to their fragile sensitivity and exquisite humour. In this respect, I felt that the quotation from Brautigan’s work, ‘We all have our roles in history, mine is clouds’ best sums up the ephemeral nature of his creative endeavour and the highly vulnerable personality which imbued it. Indeed this consciousness seemed almost butterfly like in that it was both beautiful to perceive but so fragile and insubstantial to grasp.

In an era where many book shops carry only the latest bland works of fiction, I must confess that I tended in the past to use Brautigan’s works as a kind of litmus test to see if it was worth exploring a book shop further. Thus, I invariably checked under ‘Brautigan’ in the fiction section and although I had read of Brautigans death at the time in the press, I always hoped that perhaps there might be some additional work not yet published. Of course, this search was invariably in vein and I began to quietly chide myself for such folly. Imagine my surprise therefore, when in a relatively small bookshop in Sante Fe in 2000, I discovered not only a new work of fiction by Richard Brautigan but also a biography of him by his daughter Ianthe. I was charmed and very pleased as I had feared that Brautigan’s work was beginning to be pigeon holed into the sixties period and regarded as now dated. The fine and touching biography in particular served to underline the sad and troubled last life behind the distinctive writing of Brautigan and will hopefully help to restore her father’s rightful place as a wonderful source of fun and fine writing to the present generation as well. I have no knowledge of Richard Brautigan as a person except from the very limited perspective of this literary works but I feel that he was indeed a very troubled genius. However, like one of Samuel Becket’s characters we must go on even if we don’t at times want to go on.

For my own part, for those about to embark upon an exploration of his work, may I recommend in particular the fiction work ‘The Abortion an Historical Romance’ as a starting point as it best illustrates the depth of his unique imagination and wonderful humour.


So I offer this blog entry as a genuine appreciation of the inherent value of Richard Brautigan’s literary work and its continued relevance to our lives today.