Published 15 years after his suicide, this all-new, youthful work by Brautigan, was written a decade before he found sudden fame with "Trout Fishing in America".
Richard Brautigan was an American novelist, poet, and short-story writer. Born in Tacoma, Washington, he moved to San Francisco in the 1950s and began publishing poetry in 1957. He started writing novels in 1961 and is probably best known for his early work Trout Fishing in America. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1984.
While I would never recommend this book as an introduction to Brautigan, for an already well-established fan it's a great read. You get to delve into some of his very early work and see the development of both his skill and his style. What I read was a young man with phenomenal potential in the early stages of trying to find his voice. The result is sometimes shaky, sometimes beautiful, sometimes bizarre, but it was such a treat to see him developing through the pages.
鈥楨arly work, never before published鈥� reads the front cover blurb, and on the back we鈥檙e told that these unpublished stories and poems where given to Edna Webster, the mother of the girlfriend and best friend of a 21-year-old then unknown writer, Richard Brautigan. 鈥淲hen I鈥檓 rich and famous, Edna,鈥� he told her, 鈥渢his will be your social security鈥�.
Whilst I wouldn鈥檛 recommend this as a starting place to discover Brautigan, if you鈥檙e already acquainted with and enjoy his work then this collection is a real treat.
Some of it comes over as a little juvenile (let鈥檚 be fair, he was only 21), but if you already know his work then you鈥檒l definitely pick up on the sparks of genius to come. Much of it rings with the innocence of young love, but the darkness of his future work is also present, particularly towards the end of the collection; and a lot of it is already downright bloody good.
The poem 鈥楶hotograph 12鈥� particularly struck me鈥�
鈥楢 twelve-year-old 驳颈谤濒鈥檚 virtue sitting next to a double bed and wondering what the hell happened.鈥�