TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA - Hardcover

RICHARD BRAUTIGAN

3.76

15,278 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224618490 ISBN 13: 9780224618496

Publisher: JONATHAN CAPE, 1970

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[Read by Chris Andrew Ciulla]

In its first time in audio and with an introduction written and read by poet Billy Collins, Trout Fishing in America is an indescribable romp, by turns a hilarious, playful, and melancholy novel that wanders from San Francisco through America's culture.

Richard Brautigan's world is one of gentle magic and marvelous laughter, of the incredibly beautiful and the beautifully incredible. Trout Fishing in America is a pseudonym for the miraculous. A journey which begins at the foot of the Benjamin Franklin statue in San Francisco's Washington Square, which wanders through the wonders of America's rural waterways, and which ends, inevitably, with mayonnaise. Funny, wild, and sweet, Trout Fishing in America is an incomparable guidebook to the delights of exploration -- both of land and mind.

Richard Brautigan was a literary idol of the 1960s and 1970s whose comic genius and iconoclastic vision of American life caught the imagination of young people everywhere. His early books became required reading for the hip generation, and on its publication, Trout Fishing in America, considered by many as his best novel, became an international bestseller.With it Brautigan caught the public's attention and became a cult hero. By 1970 Trout Fishing in America had become the namesake of a commune, a free school, an underground newspaper, and more.

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About the Author:

Richard Brautigan (1935-1984) was a literary idol of the 1960s and 1970s whose comic genius and iconoclastic vision of American life caught the imagination of young people everywhere. He was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington, and moved to San Francisco in the mid-1950s when he became involved in the emerging beat scene. During the 1960s, he became one of the most prominent and prolific writers of the counterculture. Out of this period came some of his most famous works, the best known of which are Trout Fishing in America; his collection of poetry, The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster; and his collection of stories, Revenge of the Lawn. Translated the world over, his works helped establish him as one of the most significant American writers of his generation. As his popularity waned towards the end of the 1970s, he became increasingly disillusioned about his work and his life. He committed suicide in 1984. He was the author of eleven novels, ten volumes of poetry, a collection of short stories, and miscellaneous nonfiction pieces, works that often employed parody, satire, and black comedy.

Review:

''There are a number of creek fishing sequences in this book which read as if Henry Miller had decided to learn about fishing from Hemingway but which will not likely amuse fisherman...The effect is more like that of a collection of newspaper columns...At times Brautigan can achieve absurdity which is Homeric...This book ought to be required reading in hippie pads.'' --Los Angeles Free Press

''A book infused with a bucolic surrealism and mournful psychedelia that has very little to do with trout fishing and a lot to do with the lamenting of a passing pastoral America...An instant cult classic.'' --Financial Times (London)

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