Richard Brautigan
Overview
Richard Gary Brautigan was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. His work often employs black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...

, parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

, and satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

. He is best known for his 1967 novel Trout Fishing in America
Trout Fishing in America
Trout Fishing in America is a novella written by Richard Brautigan and published in 1967. It is technically Brautigan's first novel; he wrote it in 1961 before A Confederate General From Big Sur which was published first....

.
Brautigan was born in Tacoma, Washington
Tacoma, Washington
Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to...

, the only child to Bernard Frederick "Ben" Brautigan, Jr. (July 29, 1908 – May 27, 1994) a factory worker and laborer, and Lulu Mary "Mary Lou" Keho (April 7, 1911 – September 24, 2005), a waitress.
Quotations

A friend came over to the house a few days ago and read one of my poems. He came back today and asked to read the same poem over again. After he finished reading it, he said, "It makes me want to write poetry."

"Hey! This Is What It's All About"

I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace.

"All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace"

if a girl likes me a lot and starts getting real nervous and suddenly begins asking me funny questions and looks sad if I give the wrong answers and she says things like, "Do you think it's going to rain?" and I say, "It beats me," and she says, "Oh," and looks a little sad at the clear blue California sky, I think: Thank God, it's you, baby, this time  Instead of me.

"It's Raining In Love" Dell Publishing (Delta), 1970; (Some poems in this edition first appeared elsewhere.)

Forsaken, fucking in the cold, eating each other, lost runny noses, complaining all the time like so many people that we know

"Donner Party"

Thinking hard about you I got on the bus and paid 30 cents car fare and asked the driver for two transfers before discovering that I wasalone.

"30 cents, Two Transfers, Love"

Everybody wants to go to bed with everybody else, they're lined up for blocks, so I'll go to bed with you. They won't miss us.

"-2" Dell Publishing (Delta), 1967; (Some chapters of this novel first appeared elsewhere.)

There are seductions that should be in the Smithsonian Institute, right next to The Spirit of St. Louis.

Epigram at the end of the table of contents. (Underlining in source.)

Everything smelled of sheep. The dandelions were suddenly more sheep than flower, each petal reflecting wool and the sound of a bell ringing off the yellow. But the thing that smelled the most like sheep, was the sun itself. When the sun went behind a cloud, the smell of sheep decreased, like standing on some old guy's hearing aid, and when the sun came back again, the smell of the sheep was loud, like a clap of thunder inside a cup of coffee.

Page 50

... the Coleman lantern is the symbol of the camping craze that is currently sweeping America, with its unholy white light burning in the forests of America.

Page 73.

 
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