Jubilee Hitchhiker (211 page)

Walker, Jayne.
See
Palladino, Jayne

Walker, Madge

Wallace, Tom

Walsh, Jim

Wang, Arthur

Warhol, Andy

Warlocks

Warren, Robert Penn

Warsh, Lewis

Washington, Horace W.

Waterston, Sam

Watkins, Bob

Wavy Gravy

Wax, Mel

Wayne, John

Weaver, Ken

Webb, Charles

Weber, Avril

Weber, Erik

Weber, Lois (Loie)

Weber, Selina

Webster, Edna

Webster, Linda

Webster, Lorna

Webster, Peter

Wedekind, Frank

Weir, Tom

Weiss, Susan Lee

Welch, Lew

Welles, Orson

Welty, Eudora

Wenders, Wim

Wenner, Jann

Wernham, Guy

Wertmüller, Lina

Wesker, Arnold

West, Jessamyn

Weston, Doug

Wexler, Haskell

Wexner, V.I.

Whalen, Philip

Whistler, James Abbott McNeill

White, Emil

White, Ralph

White Hawk, Phil

Whitman, Walt

Who

Wical, Art

Wical, Charles

Wickenden, Dan

Wicks, Jerry

Wicks, John

Wieners, John

Wilbur, Richard

Wilde, Oscar

Wildflower

William, Cole

Williams, Ace W.

Williams, Cecil

Williams, Hank

Williams, Jonathan

Williams, Lucinda

Williams, Miller

Williams, Tennessee

Williams, William Carlos

Willner, Phyllis

Wilson, Adrian

Wilson, Joe

Wilson, Lawrence

Wilson, S. Clay

Wilson, Wes

Winstanley, Gerrard

Witt-Diamant, Ruth

Wittliff, Bill

Wittliff, Sally

Wizard

Wohl, Barbara

Wolf, Leonard

Wolfe, Thomas

Wolfe, Tom

Wolman, Baron

Wonder, John

Wood, Caroline

Woods, William

Wreden, William P.

Wright, Charles

Wright, Frank Lloyd

Wright, Lawrence

Wroth, Will

Wurlitzer, Rudolph

Yamaguchi, Eiichi

Yanger, Frank

Yanoff, Lenore

Yardley, Jonathan

Yasuhara, Akiro

Yates, Richard

Ydra

Yeats, William Butler

Yee, Men

York, Mike

Yoshimura, Akiko.
See
Sakagami, Akiko (Aki)

Yoshimura, Hiroshi

Yoshimura, Yoko

Yoshiyuki, Eisuki

Yoshiyuki, Junnosuke

Yougrau, Barry

Young, Al

Young, Klyde

Young, Neil

Youngbloods

Zangari, Michael

Zappa, Frank

Zapruder, Abraham

Zeno, Jim

Zeno, Karly

Zevon, Warren

Zimmerman, Robert

Zuno, Mr.

acknowledgments

T
WO DECADES IS a long time to spend on a single project. At the end of the journey, I want to thank all those who shared their memories with me. I'm in debt to everyone who agreed to be interviewed. It's sad to tally how many have been lost along the way. The list is twenty-years long, and many who generously gave their time are no longer here to receive my appreciation. In my heart, I'll be forever grateful to them all.

Special thanks are due to those without whose help this book would never have been finished.

Ted Latty's archive of original Brautigan material filled many of the gaps in Richard's life story. Almost everything not housed in the Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley can be found in Latty's collection. While making this material available, Ted welcomed me as a guest in his home, let me use his office copying machine, and expedited much of the transcription that the project required. Words aren't sufficient for the thanks I owe him.

Tim Cahill, a friend and fellow writer who lives about two blocks away in Livingston, Montana, began researching his own Brautigan biography soon after Richard died. By the time Tim decided life was too short for such a project, he'd conducted more than two dozen interviews and very generously turned his tapes and transcriptions, along with copies of Seymour Lawrence's and Helen Brann's office files, over to me. Without this material I would have been lost. Several of Cahill's subjects had second thoughts about talking on the record by the time I became involved. Thanks, Tim.

Dr. John F. Barber has maintained an interest in Richard Brautigan since being his student at Montana State University in 1982. Barber published the first unique Brautigan bibliography in 1990. He spent years creating the
www.brautigan.net
website, a true labor of love. John has long been an enthusiastic supporter of this biography, and we've traded information about Richard for more than a decade. His help has been invaluable.

Anthony Bliss, Curator of Rare Books and Literary Manuscripts at the Bancroft Library, always provided expert guidance and kind assistance during my many long hours of archival research, an endeavor spanning almost a decade. Close to the end, I needed to verify certain exact quotes, and a trip from Livingston to Berkeley wasn't feasible. Tony rolled up his sleeves and did the work for me. I'm forever grateful.

Greg Keeler and Keith Abbott are friends and fellow writers who have both published memoirs about Richard Brautigan. They have been very generous with their time, always willing
to answer my questions and supply useful information. Greg additionally has allowed me to use several photographs and images from his personal collection. A thousand thanks, guys.

Valerie Estes and Masako Kano, two of the many women in Brautigan's life that I interviewed, became friends and constant correspondents. Masako provided translations from the Japanese whenever needed. I'm indebted to both for their candor and insightful observation. If gratitude were flowers, I'd be sending them each a huge bouquet.

Greg Miller is another passionate Richard Brautigan fan and collector. We've never met, yet he generously copied material from his archive for my use and supplied a previously unpublished photograph of Richard, which is reproduced in this book. Thanks, Greg.

Samantha Childs was still in high school when I asked her to photocopy Donald Allen's correspondence (regarding Richard Brautigan) archived at the University of California San Diego. She's working on her master's degree thesis now. Thanks, Sam, for saving me a trip to SoCal.

Valerie Chazot earned my lasting appreciation for translating articles about Brautigan in the French media when my limited knowledge of her native tongue proved inadequate for the task.
Merci beaucoup
, Valerie.

Barbara Fitzhugh (Brautigan's sister) and her husband, Jim, not only granted numerous interviews but also fed me several times at their home. Thanks for the delicious meals and the gift of a railroad lantern, which has been a handy tool up at my cabin.

Ianthe Brautigan and her filmmaker husband, Paul Swensen, provided encouragement and advice from the moment I started writing the book. Ianthe's memoir about her father offered a view of Richard from a child's perspective, which proved very useful to me. I hope this biography lives up to their expectations.

Also, I'm extremely grateful to Erik Weber for both agreeing to be interviewed and permitting the use of eleven of his fine photographs in my biography. For almost two decades, Weber chronicled Brautigan's life on film, a powerful visual record of the writer's spectacular rise and inevitable fall. Thanks for your vision, Erik.

Some of the work needed for this book was done for hire. Nevertheless, excellence should be rewarded with something more than a paycheck, and I'd like to thank Warren Bittner of Ancestors Lost and Found in Centerville, Utah, for all the fine genealogical research, Gloria Thiede for her skilled transcription typing, and Gil Stober of Peak Recordings in Bozeman, Montana, for re-mastering a number of defective, inaudible interview tapes. Kudos also to Kelly Winton at Counterpoint for undertaking the thousands of nameless tasks involved in book production and Kirsten Janene-Nelson for a superlative job of freelance copyediting.

Finally, thanks must go out to two men without whose efforts and encouragement this biography might never have made it into print. My agent, Ben Camardi, never ceased believing in the project, even when everything seemed hopeless. Jack Shoemaker not only was a friend of Richard Brautigan and agreed to several interviews, but he is also the publisher of this book. I am deeply indebted to both of them for keeping the faith over all these years.

Jubillee Hitchhiker
copyright © William Hjortsberg 2012

 

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

 

Quotations from unpublished material by Richard Brautigan are copyright Ianthe Brautigan 2012 and are used with her permission. Quotations from unpublished material by Dick Dillof are copyright Richard Dillof 2012 and used with his permission. Quotations from the unpublished journals of Marcia Clay copyright Marcia Clay 2012 and used with her permission. Quotations from the unpublished journals and letters of Valerie Estes are copyright Valerie Estes 2012 and used with her permission. Quotations from the unpublished letters of Akiko Sakagami are copyright Akiko Sakagami 2012 and used with her permission. Quotations from the unpublished letters of Masako Kano are copyright Masako Kano 2012 and used with her permission. Quotations from the unpublished letters of Seymour Lawrence are copyright Seymour Lawrence 2012 and used with his permission. Quotations from the unpublished letters of Helen Brann are copyright Helen Brann 2012 and used with her permission. Photographs by Erik Weber. Copyright Erik Weber. Used by permisssion. Photograph by Roger Ressmeyer. Copyright Roger Ressmeyer. Used by permission. Photograph by Masako Kano. Copyright Masako Kano 2012. Used by permission. Photograph by Dr. John Doss. Copyright John Doss 2012. Used by permission. Photograph by George Bennett. Copyright George Bennett 2012. Used by permission. Photograph by Quintin Barton. Copyright Quintin Barton 2012. Used by permission. Painting by Greg Keeler. Copyright Greg Keeler 2012. Used by permission. Photograph by Rhyder McClure. Copyright Rhyder McClure 1968. Used by permission. Parts of this book have appeared in different versions in the following publications:
Big Sky Journal
, Arts Issue, 2002;
Tacoma City Arts
, April, 2009;
Richard Brautigan, 
Essays on the Writings and Life
, Edited by John F. Barber, 2007.
 

Brautigan, Richard: From various Unpublished Materials by Richard Brautigan. Copyright © 1996, 2002 Ianthe Brautigan-Swensen. Reprinted with permission of the Copyright Owner. All rights reserved. Excerpts from
The Edna Webster Collection of Undiscovered Writings
by Richard Brautigan. Copyright © 1995 by Burton L. Weiss and James P. Musser. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Excerpts from
Trout Fishing in America
by Richard Brautigan. Copyright © 1967 by Richard Brautigan. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Excerpts from
The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster
by Richard Brautigan. Copyright © 1968 by Richard Brautigan. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Excerpts from
In Watermelon Sugar
by Richard Brautigan. Copyright © 1968 by Richard Brautigan. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Excerpts from
The Abortion
by Richard Brautigan. Copyright © 1970, 1971 by Richard Brautigan. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Excerpts from
So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away
by Richard Brautigan. Copyright © 1982 by Richard Brautigan. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Excerpts from
Revenge of The Lawn
by Richard Brautigan. Copyright 1971 by Richard Brautigan. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Excerpts from
You Can't Catch Death
by Ianthe Brautigan. Copyright 2000 by Ianthe Brautigan Swensen. Reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Press. Excerpts from
Downstream From Trout Fishing In America, A Memoir Of Richard Brautigan
by Keith Abbott. Copyright 2009 by Keith Abbott. Reprinted by permission of Astrophil Press. Excerpts from
Waltzing With The Captain: Remembering Richard Brautigan
by Greg Keeler. Copyright 2004 by Greg Keeler. Reprinted by permission of Limberlost Press. Excerpts from
Lighting the Corners
by Michael McClure. Copyright 1993 by Michael McClure. Reprinted by permission of University of New Mexico College of Arts and Sciences. Excerpts from
I Remain: The Letters of Lew Welch & The Correspondence of His Friends, Volume Two
by Lew Welch. Copyright 1980 by the Estate of Lew Welch.

      
Reprinted by permission of Grey Fox Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

 

eISBN : 978-1-58243-790-3

Cover design by Elke Barter

 

 

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