There was a time from the mid-1960s through the late 1970s when every hippie, hipster, and aspiring intellectual on a college campus had their obligatory copy of "Trout Fishing in America" stuffed into a stash bag along with a nickel bag, ZigZag papers, a couple of roach clips, and a copy of either "Demian" or " I Ching." Richard Brautigan was the darling of the counterculture, the hippy descendant of Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. TFIA, along with "A Confederate General From Big Sur" and "In Watermelon Sugar" became gentle, off-kilter manifestos of flower power and the beats of different drummers, and his poems were gentle parodies of poetry itself. His work sold like crazy. Sadly, the magic didn't last - the later work seemed forced, and Brautigan himself became a burnout, a has-been wrestling with alcohol, drugs, and his own demons until the inevitable suicide. For those who remember, however, he will always be linked with the Summer of Love, Woodstock, and Mayonnaise.
