I’m not at all surprised that Lucia Berlin had the opportunity to meet Richard Brautigan. At that time, he was already an established poet and novelist, while she was still a young and aspiring writer.

The kind of seeming recklessness and originality that can be found in both of their writings is truly seductive to me.

Berlin's works often display a unique charm with her bold and unrestrained writing style. Similarly, Brautigan's works are also known for their distinctiveness and innovation.

Their meeting might have been a significant event in both of their lives. It could have inspired them to further explore their creative potentials and push the boundaries of their respective art forms.

I can only imagine the interesting conversations and exchanges that might have taken place between them. It is truly fascinating to think about how their meeting might have influenced their subsequent works and careers.

In conclusion, the encounter between Lucia Berlin and Richard Brautigan is a topic that holds great appeal for me, as it represents the intersection of two remarkable literary talents.

Like a bridge between the Beats and the Hippies built with a bit of magical realism,

This unique connection seems to span the generations, carrying with it the essence of two distinct yet related cultural movements. The Beats, with their rebellious spirit and avant-garde art forms, paved the way for the Hippies who would later take the stage.

The magical realism added to this bridge gives it an otherworldly charm. It blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, much like the ideas and ideals of these two groups.

Perhaps it is this element of the unknown and the extraordinary that draws people to explore the connection between the Beats and the Hippies. It offers a glimpse into a time when society was on the cusp of great change, and these two movements were at the forefront, challenging the status quo and imagining a new world.

Whether through literature, music, or art, the bridge between the Beats and the Hippies continues to inspire and captivate, inviting us to step into a world where anything is possible.

My all-time favorite book is Brautigan's The Abortion: An Historical Romance. It's about a librarian who not only single-handedly runs a library in San Francisco but also lives there. What makes this library truly unique is that patrons bring the books they wrote and created and place them on the shelves without ever having to worry about the books being checked out. The librarian meets a beautiful woman, gets her pregnant, and the two then head to Mexico to get her an abortion. This was the first Brautigan book I read, recommended by a student a few years older than me in college. And like most things, it remained not only my favorite Brautigan work but my favorite book ever. Brautigan himself even breaks the fourth wall by putting himself in the book as a writer who submits his book "Moose" to the library. It's just a wonderful book.

Revenge of the Lawn is Brautigan's only book of short stories. One is so short that I can include it here:
LINT
I am haunted a little this evening by feelings that have no vocabulary and events that should be explained in dimensions of lint rather than words.
I've been examining half-scraps of my childhood. They are pieces of distant life that have no form or meaning. They are things that just happened like lint.
Brautigan's way with words, meanings, and personification is spot on and a major trait in his writings. It's just brilliant.

The last book, So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away, is about a man reflecting on his younger years at age 12 and how he skipped buying a hamburger to buy a box of bullets for a .22 rifle he owned and what occurs due to this fateful decision. Brautigan also introduces a couple who fishes at a pond, both wearing bib overalls and tennis shoes, dressing alike, along with an old man who lives on the other side of the pond. The book, Brautigan's last, was published in 1982, two years before he took his own life in 1984.

Something different, very quirky, even a bit bizarre.

I came across this book while browsing online at the Internet Archive. There was a waitlist, but I was intrigued after listening to "The Room of Requirement" on This American Life (NPR). One of the stories in it was about a library that never closed, which was similar to the one in Brautigan's The Abortion.

The link to that particular episode is https://www.thisamericanlife.org/664/...

After that, I delved into "So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away", which is about a young boy who made an unusual choice of purchasing bullets instead of a hamburger. Then I moved on to reading the short stories in "Revenge of the Lawn". Some of these stories were extremely short.

In conclusion, Brautigan's works are truly idiosyncratic, offering a unique and often unexpected reading experience that keeps the reader engaged and curious.