Brautigan reached the height of his literary success during the decade of the 1970s. His first collection of short stories was published, as was his best known collection of poetry. The novels he published during this decade all experimented with unusual literary genres; none followed in the path of his famous Trout Fishing in America. More information and resources about Brautigan, his life, and work during this decade are below.
Brautigan participated in a poetry reading and reception in Losekamp Hall at Rocky Mountain College, Billings, Montana.

Brautigan participated in the Sonoma State College Poetry Festival, Rohnert Park, California.

Brautigan participated in a poetry reading at the First Unitarian Church in San Francisco. Terry Link said Brautigan appeared just before 8:00 pm wearing "blue denim, a blue vest and a long blue scarf, almost like a priest's stole, considering the location." Although the audience was clearly interested, Brautigan refused to read any prose. He read current poetry, some written that morning including "Your Love," which was never collected.

To the significant lack of response from the audience, Brautigan said, "For a while I thought I was reading in a mortuary. I guess a church is the same thing." He said "I don't think the purpose of a poet is to write good poetry but to work out the possibilities of language and the human condition." In the end, despite his definition of poetry as "language and spiritual mercury," there was little if any interaction between the poet and the audience (Terry Link 26).

Brautigan participated in a "poetry-diddey-wah" with Lew Welch.

Visited Roxy and Judy Gordon in Austin, Texas.
Dedicated Rommel Drives On Deep Into Egypt, a collection of poetry, published this year, to them.
Brautigan was issued a Texas fishing license (14 August 1970).
It notes his height (6'4") and weight (165 pounds).

Featured in a LIFE magazine story, "Gentle Poet of the Young: A Cult Grows around Richard Brautigan," by John Stickney.

An image from this article was used in a boxed trivia game titled "LIFE Magazine Remembers" issued by Time Life in 1985 (printed by Selchow & Righter). Featured a set of 702 playing cards, each with a popular and/or famous photograph from the archives of LIFE magazine. Each card had a series of questions about the subject on the back side. The 3" x 5" Brautigan card was number 34 from the set.

The front shows a full bleed black and white photograph of Brautigan.

The back features a smaller version of the same photograph, Brautigan's name, trade text, and four trivia questions:

A. Who is this author of In Watermelon Sugar? (Richard Brautigan)
B. What is the title of his novel that reflects his California background? (A Confederate General From Big Sur)
C. As a San Francisco author, what group of American writers is he identified with? ("The Beat Generation")
D. Who wrote On The Road, perhaps the best known of the group this man is identified with? (Jack Kerouac)

Brautigan bought an Arts and Crafts-style, three-story, wood shingled house located at 6 Terrace Avenue in Bolinas, California, across the bay and northwest from San Francisco. Brautigan had lived periodically in Bolinas since at least May 1964 when he started writing In Watermelon Sugar. More . . .

Built at the turn-of-the-century, the third floor had two servant bedroooms, a bath, and two other bedrooms separated by a landing. The second story had a large kitchen, pantry, a servant's staircase leading to the third floor, a large living room with a walk-in fireplace, a small bedroom, and an outside deck. The first floor had a master bedroom and a full bath. The house was reported haunted by the ghost of a Chinese servant woman who had killed herself in the house and was buried in the back yard.

Prior to Brautigan's purchase of this house it had been rented by David Meltzer who edited The San Francisco Poets which included an interview with Brautigan and six poems collected in Rommel Drives On Deep into Egypt.

Allegedly, Brautigan's purchase of the house forced Meltzer, his wife Tina, and their children to leave their home. As a result, many members of the Bolinas community were upset by Brautigan's actions (Lawrence Wright 38).

Others thought Brautigan should not have bought the house for himself. Michael McClure, or example, suggested that Brautigan should have given the house to the Meltzers.

It was Richard buying the house that David and Tina lived in right out from under them and their two children that was the straw that broke my camel's back. I thought he should have bought it and let them live in it for nothing. Or even given it to them. . . . I felt that he was [after] David because David was like Richard's anti-type. David poured creativity, and in vast spontaneous amounts. I think Richard just had to get at David. So he bought the house and left it standing empty. Later, Richard shot and killed himself in that house. (Michael McClure 40)

Neither Wright or McClure are correct. In fact, Brautigan allowed the Meltzer's to stay in the house through the end of their lease, which ended in June, six months after he bought the house.

Recorded the record album "Listening to Richard Brautigan" which featured Brautigan reading several short stories and poems.
Brautigan became involved with Siew Hwa Beh, a filmmaker and writer. Chinese in ethnic origin, Siew Hwa Beh grew up in Malaysia. She eventually married Michael Lichtenstein, who died in 1997. Her sons were named Michael and Niles. Son Niles was named after Niles, California, one of the first places films were made in the state.
The Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970 published.

LISTEN

to Brautigan read the story "Revenge of the Lawn."

The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 published. In this novel a young man, the narrator, worked in a library, a Brautigan world of lonely pleasure. He met a woman, got her pregnant, and supported her abortion. In the process he learned how to reenter human society.
Brautigan reached the height of his literary success. "[R]ight now Brautigan is riding high. He is the Love Generation's answer to Charlie Schultz. Happiness is a warm hippie" (Jonathan Yardley 24).

Despite all, Brautigan's success began to falter and continued to do so throughout the rest his life. He experimented with satires of different literary genres and critics lamented the loss of the vibrant, exuberant, youthful writing of his fist three novels. He was troubled by alcoholism, insomnia, and paranoia throughout the rest of his life.

Brautigan and Lew Welch attended a party to celebrate the demise of Whole Earth Catlog hosted by editor Stuart Brand at the Exploratorium and Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, California. Dr. Frank Oppenheimer was then director of the Exploratorium. Scott Beach made the arrangements for the party.

Invitations were sent to all folks associated with the making of Whole Earth Catalog and its supplements, writers and reviewers of catalog content, and all subscribers.

The invitation apparently was first published in the March 1971 Whole Earth Catalog Supplement where the date was stated as Friday, June 11. The party date was changed to Saturday, June 12.

VIEW a larger image of this broadside.

An invitation was sent to Charles Lytle and his girlfriend Debbie, both living on a commune in Beaverton, Oregon. The pair traveled to San Francisco to attend the party.

The Associated Press story was published in The Oregonian ("Unknown hippie guests 'win' in host's $20,000 party game." 14 June 1971. ***?***.) and detailed some of the evening's activities.

READ the full text of this story.

The poem by Welch was "Springtime in the Rockies, Lichen."

It was printed as a broadside (8.5" x 14") by Cranium Press, in San Francisco, and was, apparently, given away freely.

The poem was published in Coyote's Journal #9, in 1971.

VIEW a larger image of this broadside.

The full text of Welch's poem "Springtime in the Rockies, Lichen" reads

All the years I overlooked them in the
racket of the rest, this
symbiotic splash of plant and fungus feeding
on rock, on sun, a little moisture, air—
tiny acid-factories, dissolving
salt from living rocks and
eating them.

Here they are blooming!
Trail rock, talus and scree, all dusted with it:
rust, ivory, brilliant yellow-green, and
cliffs like murals!
Huge panels streaked and patched, quietly
with shooting-stars and lupine at the base.

Closer, with the glass, a city of cups!
Clumps of mushrooms and where do the
plants begin? Why are they doing this?
In this big sky and all around me peaks &
the melting glaciers, why am I made to
kneel and peer at Tiny?

These are the stamps on the final envelope.

How can the poisons reach them?
In such thin air, how can they care for the
loss of a million breaths?
What, possibly, could make their ground more bare?

Let it all die.

The hushed globe will wait and wait for
what is now so small and slow to
open it again.

As now, indeed, it opens it again, this
scentless velvet,
crumbler-of-the-rocks,

this Lichen!  Brautigan visited Pine Creek, Montana, in Paradise Valley, just south of Livingston, on the invitation of writer Thomas McGuane (92 in the Shade). Brautigan wrote the novel The Hawkline Monster in a rented tourist cabin at the Pine Creek Lodge and Store.

While in Pine Creek, Brautigan met "The Montana Gang," a group of writers, actors, and artists living in the immediate area. Brautigan was impressed with the machismo and the ability of some members of "The Montana Gang" to achieve financial security by turning their novels into movies.

This photograph by Erik Weber shows Brautigan sitting, drinking, and talking with some of The Montana Gang around a table at Tom McGuane's ranch during his first trip to Montana, 1973. To Brautigan's right is Jim Harrison. Clockwise from his left are Tom McGuane, Bill Roecker, Becky McGuane, and Dink Bruce. This photograph appeared on the back cover of Keith Abbott's Downstream From Trout Fishing in America.

Livingston, Montana, members of "The Montana Gang," and others were profiled in several newspaper articles, some of which mentioned Brautigan.

Robert Cross's article, "A Refuge in Montana: The Gossip-Column Set Slips Quietly into the Woods" (Chicago Tribune 20 September 1992. Travel Section, 1), focuses on Livingston, Montana, as the town near where author William R. Hjortsberg lives and writes.

READ this article.

Phil Patton's article, "The Dude Is Back in Town" (The New York Times 18 April 1993, Sec. 9:10), focuses on the reemergence of popularity of Western style in furniture, furnishings, clothing, and collectables. Patton offers a time line "When Easterner Met West," detailing the history of the popularity of the Western style. He mentions Brautigan as part of Livingston, Montana, "Big Sky Bloomsbury."

READ this article.

Toby Thompson's article, "Out There: Livingston, MONT: A Rumble Runs Through It" (The New York Times 11 April 1993, Sec. 9: 3), focuses on The Murray Hotel in Livingston, Montana, which has long been a watering hole for the rich and famous and otherwise noteworthy.

READ this article.

Wendy Werris describes a brief affair with Brautigan in Autumn 1973 in her memoir of her life in the book business, An Alphabetical Life:  Living It Up in the World of Books. (New York: Carroll and Graff, 2006. 51-54.) Working for Rolling Stone/Straight Arrow Books in San Francisco, Werris met Brautigan at Enrico's in North Beach. Brautigan was disheveled and intoxicated. Despite all this, "I was enchanted." (51)


Brautigan standing beside the mailbox of his Pine Creek, Montana, home.
Photograph by John Fryer.

The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western published. The novel was well received by a wider audience than his earlier work. Again, he played with the idea that imagination has both good and bad ramifications, turning it into a monster with the power to turn objects and thoughts into whatever amused it. Hal Ashby, director of the movie Being There, purchased the screenplay rights. Brautigan wrote a screenplay for a movie adaptation but abandoned the project when asked to rewrite the first draft.
Based on his earlier experience in Montana, Brautigan bought a 42-acre ranch and established a residence in Pine Creek, Montana, a quarter of a mile from the Pine Creek Lodge and Store.

The ranch included a two-story ranch house, an outbuilding that Brautigan remodeled into a sleeping cabin, a large barn, and some acreage which Brautigan intended to rent out as pasture. The remodeling of the sleeping cabin included a redwood floor, redwood trim around the room, and a triangular, free-standing closet in one corner. A painting by Montana artist Russell Chatham of the view once seen out a window filled in during the remodeling hung on one wall. A wood cook stove stood in the middle of the room, its chimney bottom boxed in with wood painted a rich shade of raspberry. It served as an effective dividing point between the sitting and sleeping portions of the room.

In the very top of the barn, Brautigan built a writing room with a large window looking East, toward the Absaroka Mountains. The room was small with some book shelves and a redwood desk for his typewriter. It was reached by a long climb up a series of stairs inside the barn. The ranch was sold after his death to cover his debts.

This photograph by Michael Abramson, shows Brautigan and daughter Ianthe sitting in front of the barn in 1980. The window of the writing room is visible at the top of the barn. This photograph appeared on the front cover of Ianthe's book You Can't Catch Death, a memoir of the life and death of her father. A similiar photograph, taken at the same time, appeared in James Seymore's eulogy to Brautigan.

LOOK

at current day photographs of Brautigan's former Montana home.

Brautigan was not alone in the wilds of Montana. His immediate neighbors were William J. Hjortsberg (Falling Angel) and his then wife Marian on one side and Robert L. Gorsuch on the other. Gorsuch, a licensed plumber, often repaired things around the ranch and acted as watchman when Brautigan was gone. Living nearby were writers Jim Harrison (Farmer) and his wife Marge. Actors Peter Fonda and his wife Becky, Jeff Bridges, and Warren Oates, film director Sam Peckinpah, cinematographer Michael Butler, and painter Russell Chatham also lived nearby. Other visiting writers (like Guy de la Valdene), artists, and musicians often visited.

Brautigan allegedly refuses to deliver lectures or grant interviews for the next eight years.
Willard and His Bowling Trophies: A Perverse Mystery, an experiment with the sado-masochist genre, published. The novel, as all others by Brautigan, dealt with the isolation of people from each other.
To escape the noise of constructing the Geary Tunnel in front of his apartment, Brautigan moved to a newly remodeled apartment on Union Street.


Brautigan visited Japan for seven months. Here he found the literary fame lacking in America. His experiences provided material for the collection of poems, June 30th, June 30th and the collection of stories The Tokyo-Montana Express. This was also the beginning of his habit of living in Japan part of each year. While in Japan, Brautigan lived in Tokyo's Keio Plaza Hotel.

Jim DeBerry tells of meeting Brautigan in Tokyo's Keio Plaza Hotel.

During this trip Brautigan met Akiko Nishizawa Yoshimura. She approached Brautigan saying she admired his writing and wanted to meet him. She was married at the time and went by the surname Yoshimura. She was with Brautigan, in spirit and fact, while he wrote many of the poems and stories that appeared in June 30th, June 30th, published in 1978, and The Tokyo-Montana Express, published in 1979.

Brautigan and Akiko married in 1977. More . . .

Loading Mercury With a Pitchfork, a collection of poetry, published. This collection was unique in that it its poems were grouped in titled sections and featured the crow as a dominant figure throughout.

Sombrero Fallout: A Japanese Novel published. This novel featured two interrelated stories. The first was about a sombrero falling from the sky and its affect on humanity. In the second story, the narrator of the first thinks about his Japanese ex-lover who had recently moved out of his apartment.

Brautigan married a Japanese woman, Akiko Nishizawa Yoshimura, in Richmond, California. They met in 1976, during Brautigan's first trip to Japan. They separated in 1979 and divorced in 1980. More . . .

Dreaming of Babylon: A Private Eye Novel 1942, a parody of hard-boiled Grade-B detective stories, published.

J. D. Leitaker, the principal of Anderson High School in Anderson, California, removed seven Brautigan books from the school's library and from the developmental reading classroom of a teacher who had taught at the Northern California school for eight years. The school board voted later to ban The Abortion, Trout Fishing in America, The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, Rommel Drives On Deep into Egypt, and A Confederate General from Big Sur. Not banned were The Revenge of the Lawn and In Watermelon Sugar. The San Francisco American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in October and the case was decided in Brautigan's favor in December. More . . .

June 30th, June 30th published. It resulted from Brautigan's trip to Japan in 1976 and is a poetic travel diary of his relationship with Japan. Brautigan was well received in Japan. In America he was out of favor. This collection of travel poems, poems about place, following the Japanese tradition of haibun, a collection of haiku gathered into a story line, was largely ignored.

Brautigan and wife Akiko sent a Christmas card to John and Margot Doss, long-time personal friends with Brautigan.

The Dosses owned a home in Bolinas, California, which Brautigan visited prior to his own purchase of a home there. John Doss was a San Francisco medical doctor. Margot Patterson Doss was a writer and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. She organized a surprise birthday party for Brautigan in 1970.

Akiko's hand-written inscription reads

Dear Margot & John,
Merry Christmas
&
a Happy New Year!!

For us?
please wish
NO SICKNESS
in next year!

Aki x Richard Brautigan

Brautigan signed his own name, "Richard" on the card.

VIEW a larger image of this inscription.

Margot Doss placed the Christmas card in her copy of Brautigan's Sombrero Fallout, along with a typed letter from Don Allen to Brautigan mentioning Thomas McGuane's sickness and asking when Brautigan was returning to Bolinas, California, and a newspaper obituary of Brautigan's death in 1984.

Brautigan lived in an apartment on Montgomery Street.


Lived in an apartment on Green Street in San Francisco.

Brautigan and Akiko Nishizawa Yoshimura, his second wife, separated. They were married on 1 December 1977 in Richmond, California. They entered divorce proceedings on 30 October 1980. Their divorce was finalized some months later.

At 94th annual meeting of Modern Language Association of America (MLA) in San Francisco, in December, Brautigan participated in a panel discussion concerning the importance of Zen Buddhism to American Literature. This special event, titled "Zen and Contemporary Poetry," held at 9:00 pm, in Plaza Square of the Hyatt Hotel, included Robert Bly, Gary Snyder, Lucien Stark, Philip Whalen, and Brautigan as speakers. A listing of this program is included in the Directory of PMLA 94(6) Nov. 1979: 1133. The session was chaired by Dennis Lynch, then a graduate student at Northern Illinois University.

LEARN more about Brautigan's participation in this conference.