As further proof of the Underground’s ongoing attempts to make the world a more literate place, we’re pleased to be reminded that today is the birthday of Richard Brautigan.

Brautigan wrote “Trout Fishing in America” – another book which really isn’t about fishing at all (but us fly fishermen tend to ignore those inconvenient facts). From the Writer’s Almanac:

It’s the birthday of Richard Brautigan, (books by this author) born in Tacoma, Washington (1935), best known for his 1967 book Trout Fishing in America, which has sold millions of copies around the world. It’s only 112 pages long, it’s abstract, it doesn’t have much of a plot, and characters in the story reappear in seemingly unrelated incidents.

An idyllic book, but Brautigan’s own childhood in the Pacific Northwest was from idyllic. His father abandoned his mother while she was pregnant with him, and his mother was an alcoholic and a heavy smoker. Brautigan had a string of stepfathers. He was extremely poor and often went without food.

On a chilly mid-December night when he was 20, a year and a half after he’d moved out of his mother’s house and into a Quaker boarding house, he filled his pockets with rocks, walked up to the Eugene Oregon police station inside City Hall, announced, “I am a criminal. I am going to break the law,” starting throwing rocks through the police station window, and asked police to put him behind bars. He was literally starving trying to be a writer, and he figured that if he went to jail he would at least get fed three meals a day.

Lighthearted stuff indeed.

Right now I’m reading a biography of Raymond Carver – another writer who struggled mightily and suffered from substance abuse.

Frankly, I’m starting to believe I’ve got it a little too good to make it as a writer; I’m considering adding some unhealthy addictions to my daily routine.

See you in rehab, Tom Chandler

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