First published in 1971, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970, a collection of sixty-two stories, was Brautigan's first published collection of stories.

Unlike previous books by Brautigan, the front cover did not feature a photograph of him and a woman friend. This one featured a photograph of a woman, alone, sitting at a table in front of a cake. The woman is Sherry Vetter, from Louisville, Kentucky. Vetter taught at St. Anthony's, a girl's Catholic High School in Long Beach, California, during the academic year 1968-1969. She then moved to San Francisco. Years later, after marrying, Vetter settled with her husband in Port Royal, Kentucky.

Dedication reads:

This book is for
Don Carpenter

Don Carpenter and Brautigan were good, long-time friends.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971
5.75" x 8.25"; 174 pages; ISBN 0-671-20960-4; First printing 1 October 1971
Hard Cover, with dust jacket
Front cover photograph by Edmund Shea of Sherry Vetter, a San Francisco school teacher from Louisville, Kentucky
No back cover illustration or photograph
Advance review copies featured green topstain

Quarter-page advertisement
Black and white
5" x 7"
Rolling Stone 1972

• Cape
• Mifflin
• Picador
• Pocket
• Rebel
• Touchstone

• Czech
• Dutch
• French
• German
• Hungarian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Persian
• Russian

In 1970, Brautigan released a record album titled "Listening to Richard Brautigan" that featured him reading poetry, short stories, and selections from some of his novels. "Revenge of the Lawn," "A Short Story about Contemporary Life in California," "The Memory of a Girl," "The View from the Dog Tower," and "Pale Marble Movie," all stories from Revenge of the Lawn, were included.

READ more about "Listening to Richard Brautigan."

Or, follow the links in the "Contents" section below to listen to Brautigan read specific stories from this collection.
Unless noted, stories first published here. The stories in order of their appearance:

"Revenge of the Lawn"
"Two Stories by Richard Brautigan." TriQuarterly 5 Winter 1966: 55-59.
Published in Evanston, Illinois. Featured two stories: "Revenge of the Lawn" and "A Short History of Religion in California."

"Listening to Richard Brautigan" Harvest Records.

LISTEN to Brautigan read "Revenge of the Lawn." "1692 Cotton Mather Newsreel"
"Three Stories by Richard Brautigan." Mademoiselle (71) July 1970: 104-105.
Featured three stories: "1692 Cotton Mather Newsreel," "Sand Castles," and "Pacific Radio Fire." "1/3, 1/3, 1/3"
Ramparts December 1967: 43-45.
Published in San Francisco, California. Included a photograph by Baron Wolman of Brautigan and a review by Stephen Schneck of Trout Fishing in America. Schneck participated on the Creative Arts Conference program with Brautigan in August 1969.
"The Gathering of a Californian" "A Short Story about Contemporary Life in California"
Rolling Stone (36) 28 June 1969: 38.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"Listening to Richard Brautigan" Harvest Records.
On one track from this album, titled "Short Stories about California," Brautigan reads "A Short Story about Contemporary Life in California," "The Memory of a Girl," "The View from the Dog Tower," and "Pale Marble Movie."

LISTEN to Brautigan read these stories.

LISTEN to Brautigan read "A Short Story about Contemporary Life in California." "Pacific Radio Fire"
"Three Stories by Richard Brautigan." Mademoiselle (71) July 1970: 104-105.
Featured three stories: "1692 Cotton Mather Newsreel," "Sand Castles," and "Pacific Radio Fire." "Elmira"
Rolling Stone (30) 5 April 1969: 28.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"Coffee"
Change 1963: n. pg.
Published in San Francisco, California. The only issue of Brautigan's own literary journal. Edited by Ron Loewinsohn and Brautigan. Also called Change, the Fastest Car on Earth (Peter Manso and Michael McClure 65). Mimeographed sheets (8.5" x 11") with a photograph of Loewinsohn and Brautigan on the front cover. More . . .
"The Lost Chapters of Trout Fishing in America: 'Rembrandt Creek' and 'Carthage Sink'"
Esquire (74) October 1970: 152-153.
Published in Chicago, Illinois. Featured a full-page color illustration of Brautigan by Richard Weigand.
"The Weather in San Francisco"
Vogue (154) October 1969: 126. "Complicated Banking Problems"
Evergreen Review 84 November 1970: 41.
Published in New York, New York, 1957-1973. Edited by Barney Rosset and Donald M. Allen (numbers 1-6 only) with the backing of Grove Press.
"A High Building in Singapore"
Rolling Stone (48) 13 December 1969: 40.
Published in San Francisco, California. Featured two stories: "Ernest Hemingway's Typist" and "A High Building in Singapore."
"An Unlimited Supply of 35 Milllimeter Film" "The Scarlatti Tilt" "The Wild Birds of Heaven"
Parallel 1(3) July-August 1966: 10-12.
Published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Edited by Peter Desbarats. Illustrated by Morris Danylewich. "Winter Rug"
Vogue (156) 1 August 1970: 98. "Ernest Hemingway's Typist"
Rolling Stone (48) 13 December 1969: 40.
Published in San Francisco, California. Featured two stories: "Ernest Hemingway's Typist" and "A High Building in Singapore."

The woman referred to as Ernest Hemingway's typist was Valerie Hemingway (nee Valerie Danby-Smith), an Irish reporter, who met Hemingway and his wife, Mary, in Spain in 1959 and traveled with them as Hemingway's personal secretary for the next two years through France and Spain and lived with them in Cuba. Five years after his death in 1961, Valerie married Hemingway's estranged son, Gregory.

Valerie Hemingway's book, Running with the Bulls: My Years with the Hemingways (New York: Random House, 2004), tells the story of her time with Papa Hemingway and her eventual marriage to his son, Gregory.

Robert F. Burgess includes an interview with "a matronly friend [Valerie Hemingway] who was only 19-years-old when Hemingway hired her in Pamplona to work for him as a researcher/typist in Cuba after they met at his last fiesta in 1959" in his book Hemingway's Paris and Pamplona, Then and Now: A Personal Memoir (Lincoln, NE: iUniverse. 2000).

The identity of the "friend" who hired Valerie as a typist in New York and then told Brautigan prompting him to write his story is more difficult. He might have been Irish playwright Brendan Behan (The Hostage), or playwright Samson Raphaelson. "Homage to the San Francisco YMCA"
Vogue (158) July 1971: 96-97.
Appeared there under the title "A Homage to the San Francisco YMCA." "The Pretty Office"
R. C. Lion 2 1966: 4-5.
8.5" x 11"; 26 pages; Mimeographed sheets; stapled; Cover same stock as interior pages;
Published by the University of California, Berkeley Rhymers Club, Berkeley, California. Subtitled "The Magazine That Submerges Periodically" and called variously Our Sea Lion or Ah, Sue Lyon. Only three issues. Edited by David Bromige, Sherril Jaffe, David Schaff, and Ron Loewinsohn.

This issued featured work by Anselm Holle, Richard Brautigan, David Schaff, Jo Marsten, Ted Berrigan, David Bromige, Ross Angier, Sherril Jaffe, Bob May, Red Baren, David Schaff (again), Johannes Amicus, Jim St. Jim, and Ron Loewinsohn, in that order. "A Need for Gardens"
Rolling Stone (24) 21 December 1968: 24.
Published in San Francisco, Californina.

Featured three stories: "Crazy Old Women Are Riding the Buses of America Today," "Fame in California," and "A Need for Gardens." The title of "Fame in Califorina" modified to "Fame in California/1964" for this collection.

"The Old Bus"
Vogue (157) February 1971: 192. "The Ghost Children of Tacoma"
Rolling Stone (25) 4 January 1969: 30.
Published in San Francisco, California. Featured two stories: "The Ghost Children of Tacoma" and "Lint."
"The Ghost Children of Tacoma" is an autobiographical accounting of the early years of World War II in Tacoma, Washington. Brautigan writes,

The children of Tacoma, Washington, went to war in December 1941. It seemed like the thing to do, following in the footsteps of their parents and other grown-ups who acted as if they knew what was happening. (73)

He recounted killing imaginary enemies and playing airplane in the house with his sister. "Talk Show"
Kaleidoscope-Milwaukee 3(9) 12 October 1970: 1, 10.
Published biweekly Box 5457, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53701. "I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone"
Rolling Stone (27) 15 February 1969: 10.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California. This issue focused on Groupies, females (generally) who followed and attempted to attract the attentions of rock musicians.
"Trick or Treating Down to the Sea in Ships" "Blackberry Motorist" "Thoreau Rubber Band" "44:40" "Perfect California Day" "The Post Offices of Eastern Oregon"
Kulchur 13 Spring 1964: 51-55.
Published in New York, New York spring 1960 (issue #1) through winter 1965 (issue #20). This issue (13) was edited by Lita Hornick, Frank O'Hara, and Leroi Jones.
Also included work by Allan Kaplan, Joe LeSuer, Allen Ginsberg, Andy Warhol (scenes from The Kiss) and others. "Pale Marble Movie"
Rolling Stone (42) 20 September 1969: 25.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"Listening to Richard Brautigan" Harvest Records.
On one track from this album, titled "Short Stories about California," Brautigan reads "A Short Story about Contemporary Life in California," "The Memory of a Girl," "The View from the Dog Tower," and "Pale Marble Movie."

LISTEN to Brautigan read these stories.

LISTEN to Brautigan read "Pale Marble Movie." "Partners"
Jeopardy (6) March 1970: 90.
Published in Bellinghman, Washington, by the Associated Student Body of Western Washington State College.

Also included work by Keith Abbott, Greg Kuzma, Anselm Hollo, Noritoshi Tachibana (translated by Yozo Shibuya and Ron Bayes), Stephen Dunn, Richard Eberhart, James Den Boer, Charles Bukowski, Joyce Odam, William Stafford, Louis Ginsberg, Ann Mennebroker, John Stevens Wade, Stanley Cooperman, Stanley Plumley, Collete Inez, Terry Stokes, and Grace Butler. "Getting to Know Each Other"
Rolling Stone (67) 15 October 1970: 22.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"A Short History of Oregon"
Rolling Stone (26) 1 February 1969: 26.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, Californina.
"A Long Time Ago People Decided to Live in America"
Rolling Stone (34) 31 May 1969: 37.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"A Short History of Religion in California"
"Two Stories by Richard Brautigan." TriQuarterly 5 Winter 1966: 55-59.
Published in Evanston, Illinois.

Featured two stories: "Revenge of the Lawn" and "A Short History of Religion in California."

Rolling Stone (37) 12 July 1969: 37.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"April in God-damn" "One Afternoon in 1939" "Corporal"
"Little Memoirs: Three Tales by Richard Brautigan." Playboy December 1970: 164-165.
Featured three stories: "Corporal," "The Literary Life in California/1964," and "Halloween in Denver." "Lint"
Rolling Stone (25) 4 January 1969: 30.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
Featured two stories: "The Ghost Children of Tacoma" and "Lint."
"A Complete History of Germany and Japan"
Rolling Stone (33) 17 May 1969: 12.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
Appeared here as "A Complete Movie of Germany and Japan."
Title changed to "A Complete History of Germany and Japan" for this collection.
"The Auction"
Vogue (155) January 1970: 179. "The Armored Car"
Nice 1(1) 1967: n. pg.
Published in Brightlingsea, Essex, England, 1966-1967. Edited by Thomas Clark. Nice is the tenth in a series of issues, each described as "a one shot magazine," each edited by Clark and published as "Vol. 1 No. 1." Each issue had a different cover title: "Once," "Twice," "Thrice," "Thrice and 1/2?," "Frice," "Vice," "Spice," "Slice," "Ice," and "Nice." All were collected in The Once Series and reprinted by Krause Reprint Company (New York, 1970).

Clark apparently solicited this story for his magazine. In a letter to Clark, dated September 7, 1965, Brautigan thanks him for his postcard (the request for a submission?) and says, "I have enclosed a short story called "The Armored Car" that I hope will interest you." Brautigan asks for "two copies of the issue that it [the story] is printed in" and that the copyright notice is printed with the story, "if you decide you want to use the story." Brautigan concludes his letter, "Anyway, your magazine sounds like fun." More . . .

The dedication for this story reads: "For Janice."
Possibly, this was Janice Meissner with whom Brautigan lived at 2830 California Street in March 1965. Photographer Erik Weber photographed them together.

Brian Nation lived next door to both Brautigan and Meissner.

READ an account by Nation of his relationship with both Brautigan and Meissner.

VIEW a photograph of Meissner by Nation. "The Literary Life in California/1964"
"Little Memoirs: Three Tales by Richard Brautigan." Playboy December 1970: 164-165.
Featured three stories: "Corporal," "The Literary Life in California/1964," and "Halloween in Denver." "Banners of My Own Choosing"
Now Now 2 1965: n.pg.
Counterculture magazine published in San Francisco, California, by Ari Publications from 1963 (issue #1) to 1965 (issue #3). Edited by Charles Plymell who said,

I sat with Richard Brautigan in some of the new head shops and discussed the scene. He had a sense of what the new generation liked to hear. I took some of his poems to publish in an issue of Now magazine (289). . . . It was the time of nude parties and free love, when women's bodies were painted on. The last time I saw Richard Brautigan was at such a party. (Plymell 292-293)

Plymell also printed the first issues of Zap comic with illustrations by Robert Crumb.

Other contributors included Philip Whalen, Bruce Conner, Wallace Berman (collage), Allen Ginsberg, Lew Welch, Michael Bowen (collage), George Herms, and Dennis Hopper. "Fame in California/1964"
Rolling Stone (24) 21 December 1968: 24.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
Featured three stories: "Crazy Old Women Are Riding the Buses of America Today," "Fame in California," and "A Need for Gardens." The title of "Fame in Califorina" modified to "Fame in California/1964" for this collection. "Memory of a Girl"
Rolling Stone (39) 9 August 1969: 37.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"Listening to Richard Brautigan" Harvest Records.
On one track from this album, titled "Short Stories about California," Brautigan reads "A Short Story about Contemporary Life in California," "The Memory of a Girl," "The View from the Dog Tower," and "Pale Marble Movie."

LISTEN to Brautigan read these stories.

LISTEN to Brautigan read "The Memory of a Girl." "September California"
Sum (3) May 1964: 23.
Subtitled "A Newsletter of Current Workings."
7" x 8.5"; 33 pages counting insisde front and back covers; Mimeographed, folded and stapled.
Published in Albuquerque, New Mexico, December 1963 (issue #1) - April 1965 (issue #7). Edited by Fred Wah of the English Department at the University of New Mexico. Ron Loewinshohn, John Keys, and Ken Irby were contributing editors. "Notes," on the inside front cover say, "Richard Brautigan is copyrighting his prose from San Francisco."

This issue included works by David Bromige, Robert Duncan, John Wieners, Frank Davey, Drummond Hadley, George Bowering, Carol Berge, David Cull, Jim St. Jim, Denise Levertov, Alan Kimball, Ken Irby, Steven Slavik, Sam Abrams, John Keys, Richard Brautigan, a review of Louis Zukefsky's Found Objects by Fred Wah, Ed Sanders, Paul Blackburn, Sylvester Pollet, Pat **?**, Gael Tunbull, and Fred Wah, in that order.

A Poetry Folio: 1964. San Francisco: East Wind Printers, 1964.
A single story, printed in broadside. More . . .
"A Study in California Flowers"
Coyote's Journal 5/6 1966: 81.
116 pages
Published in Eugene, Oregon, and San Francisco, California. Edited by James Koller and Edward van Aelstyn.
Also included work by Gary Snyder, Robert Duncan, James Koller, Paul Blackburn, Joanne Kyger, Allen Ginsberg, Larry Eigner, Anselm Hollo, Richard Duerden, Tom Pickard, Philip Whalen, and Clark Coolidge.
Imprint varies. Number 1-4 published in Eugene, Oregon; number 5-8 in San Francisco, California by City Lights; Number 9- in Berkeley, CA by Book People; Number 11 in Brunswick, Maine by Coyote Books; Number 12 in Brattleboro, Vermont by Coyote Books.

Grosseteste Review 1(3) Winter (March) 1968.
Published in Lincoln, England. This 48-page issue also featured work by Joanne Kyger, David Chaloner, John Newlove, Curtis Zahn, Peter Riley, and Man Wright. "The Betrayed Kingdom"
Evergreen Review 76 March 1970: 51.
Published in New York, New York, 1957-1973. Edited by Barney Rosset and Donald M. Allen (numbers 1-6 only) with the backing of Grove Press. "Women When They Put Their Clothes On in the Morning"
Rolling Stone (41) 6 September 1969: 30.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"Halloween in Denver"
"Little Memoirs: Three Tales by Richard Brautigan." Playboy December 1970: 164-165.
Featured three stories: "Corporal," "The Literary Life in California/1964," and "Halloween in Denver," which was written about an experience shared with Valerie Estes in her apartment at 1429 Kearny Street in San Francisco, California.

International Times 119 16-30 December 1971: 16.
London underground magazine started by Barry Miles. Featured an illustration by "Yellow Pig." Cover shows Fat Freddy as Father Christmas. Contents include a pullout paranoia board game, a full-page photograph of Jim Morrison, and a review of a Yoko Ono film.
"Atlantisburg"
Rolling Stone (61) 25 June 1970: 11.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"The View from the Dog Tower"
Rolling Stone (31) 19 April 1969: 8.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"Listening to Richard Brautigan" Harvest Records.
On one track from this album, titled "Short Stories about California," Brautigan reads "A Short Story about Contemporary Life in California," "The Memory of a Girl," "The View from the Dog Tower," and "Pale Marble Movie."

LISTEN to Brautigan read these stories.

LISTEN to Brautigan read "The View from the Dog Tower." "Greyhound Tragedy"
Rolling Stone (63) 23 July 1970: 15.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"Crazy Old Women Are Riding the Buses of America Today"
Rolling Stone (24) 21 December 1968: 24.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
Featured three stories: "Crazy Old Women Are Riding the Buses of America Today," "Fame in California," and "A Need for Gardens." The title of "Fame in Califorina" modified to "Fame in California/1964" for this collection. "The Correct Time" "Holiday in Germany"
Rolling Stone (28) 1 March 1969: 30.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"Sand Castles"
"Three Stories by Richard Brautigan." Mademoiselle (71) July 1970: 104-105.

Featured three stories: "1692 Cotton Mather Newsreel," "Sand Castles," and "Pacific Radio Fire." "Forgiven"
Rolling Stone (29) 15 March 1969: 25.
Published by Straight Arrow Publishers, San Francisco, California.
"American Flag Decal" "The World War I Lost Angeles Airplane"
New American Review. Number 12. Ed. Theodore Solotaroff. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971. 123-126. In addition to the specific reviews detailed below, commentary about this book may also be included in General Reviews of Brautigan's work and his place in American literature, or reviews of his Collections.

The New York Times Book Review 3 December 1972: 78.
This review reads

Here is a collection of short stories to delight Brautigan fans and demonstrate why his status has changed from writers' writer to American folk hero. Some of the subjects here are a childhood in the Pacific Northwest; hunting and fishing; the down-and-outness of the unheralded writer's life in San Francisco during the Fifties; relationships with women. But, as in all his work, these are only settings for his perceptions about how it feels to be alone in America, as child, lover, husband, writer, and person-in-residence in a vast world made more specific and less lonely by small madnesses and imagined affinities.

The stories, many of them only a paragraph or two long, are characterized by that Brautigan-blend of simplicity, humor, surrealism, nostalgia, and bittersweetness that endeared Saroyan to an earlier generation of Americans. The simplicity is sometimes cloying and the nostalgia sometimes veers into the sentimental, but these are small faults if you enjoy Brautigan, as I do, enormously; if you don't, they'll madden you and make him seem dead-pan precocious and wildly self-indulgent. If you're a woman, you will also be maddened by the exaggerated Beat Generation attitudes toward women. (Many of Brautigan's books come embellished with a photograph of a different and dazzlingly beautiful woman as the front of the jacket. How would Brautigan feel about a woman writer who reversed this custom—peculiar, no?) The last is a serious reservation, but this review is meant to be an endorsement. My own favorite in this collection is "Complicated Banking Problems," in which anyone who has ever felt the apolitical need to bomb his local bank as a perfectly individual response to insanity rendered will find immense consolation. The prose is of a spareness that can be mistaken for slightness or fragility, it's neither: Brautigan is hardly a "heavy" writer, but he's no lightweight. If you haven't read him yet, this collection is a good place to start.

READ the full text of this review.
READ the full text of this review.
READ this review.
READ this review.
READ the full text of this review.

Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 1. Ed. Carolyn Riley. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1973. 44-45.

A "Letter to the Editor" from Robert James Toye (The New York Times Book Review 27 February 1972, Sec. 7: 27) disputes Hendin's review.

 

• First Edition
• Reviews

READ this review. READ this review.

LEARN more about this book. READ the full text of this review.