Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo is the first novel by Oscar Zeta Acosta and it focuses on his own self-discovery in a fictionalized manner.
[1] An autobiography, the plot presents an alienated lawyer of Mexican descent, who works in an Oakland, California antipoverty agency, without any sense of purpose or identity.
At the end of the work, the protagonist takes the middle name "Zeta", a symbol that represents his Chicano and Mexican culture and roots.
After traveling to his birthplace, the lost character discovers himself and learns lessons on the road as he reflects on his life.
On the back of some copies of the book, it says "Oscar Zeta Acosta was famous as a Robin Hood Chicano lawyer and notorious as the real-life model for Hunter S. Thompson's 'Dr.
Standing naked in front of the mirror, he reflects on his large brown body and his general health.
While looking in the mirror, he seeks advice from his “three favorite men”: Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson.
The narrator leaves his apartment in San Francisco and drives to Oakland where he works as a legal aid lawyer.
To get through the tedium of filing countless restraining orders for battered women and to deal with his inability to help the clients in a system that favors those with the money to pay high-priced lawyers, the narrator has spent the past year watching television, taking tranquilizers, and drinking.
When he arrives at work he avoids going into his office, unable to face the five women sitting in the waiting room.
During this time he met a neighbor in his apartment building, Cynthia, who was the sister of his friend Charlie Fisher.
Having stopped off to pick up some scotch and now already drunk, the narrator goes to Trader JJ's, a San Francisco bar he frequents.
He was born in El Paso but grew up from the age of five in Riverbank, a town of fewer than 4,000 people in California's Central Valley.
The father imposed strict discipline and order based on the regulations of the Navy's The Seabee Manual.
The narrator splits up from Karin in Ketchum, Idaho but she leaves him a note inviting him to meet her at her brother's house in nearby Wilmington.
During his Junior year in high school, the narrator fell in love with a Freshman named Alice Brown.
Although she walked with a slight limp caused by polio, she was incredibly beautiful and the narrator was instantly attracted to her.
After graduation the narrator, not knowing what else to do and having to wait for Alice to finish high school so they could marry, joined the Air Force.
He began leading prayer groups and he impressed members of the local congregation with his ability to testify to sin.
Afraid of confusing the Indians if he went back on his preaching, he continued giving them sermons on general themes such as brother lovely.
He went to New Orleans where drank and smoke and briefly considered committing suicide but decided that jumping from a window would be too painful.
In Wilmington, the narrator attends a Fourth of July party at a mansion with the rich friends of Karen.
She recommends that he continue what she calls “his search” by looking for Bobby Miller at the Daisy Duck bar in Alpine.
King on the other hand is a rough biker, who makes threatening remarks about running greasers out of town.
The narrator went ahead with the case and was able to convince the jury that he was not guilty because the police car was unmarked, and, therefore, it was natural for someone who grew up in a rough area to try to flee.
He attended night classes at San Francisco Law School and worked during the day as a copy boy at a newspaper.
After picking up more beer at the local grocery store, they head to a park where a group of hippies are gathering after a protest at the house of Gene McNamara.
In Juarez, he is moved to see so many Mexicans with their brown skin and, most of all, people speaking Spanish openly in public.
In the bar, he meets two prostitutes and spends a week with them, eating, drinking, and having sex, until his money runs out.
The female judge lectures him on the behavior of Americans coming across the border to sleep with prostitutes and on his inability to speak proper Spanish.