Grace Is What Remains After the Author

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I first became aware of Richard Brautigan about fifty years ago through a book called Trout Fishing in America. I went on to read everything he wrote and found an incredible amount of meaning in his very tight sentences. At one point I read his biography—it couldn’t have been an autobiography because he was already dead—but it described his writing method: how he could write the same sentence over and over again to achieve a particular rhythm in the language.

This approach is astonishing, especially when compared to much surrealist writing. If you read translations of André Breton, the language is often so tedious it becomes difficult to read. It makes me dislike André Breton even more. He was so pompous he thought he invented Surrealism. But that’s not my topic.

My topic is Richard Brautigan—what an extraordinary writer he was, and how deeply he influenced my own style.

My first serious relationship began in Charleston, Oregon, in a motel where I stayed while planting trees in Coos Bay. The woman I was with at the time read Trout Fishing in America aloud to me. She had an incredible voice. Listening to her was like listening to someone sing. It was beautiful, and the book itself was astonishing. It completely blew my mind.

For years after that, I read every book Brautigan published. I waited for each new one. I loved The Hawkline Monster. The idea of conscious chemicals in that story influenced my later alchemical experiments, and that influence is still with me today.