Richard Gary Brautigan (January 30, 1935 – c. September 16, 1984) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer.

A prolific writer, he wrote throughout his life and published ten novels, two collections of short stories, and four books of poetry.

Brautigan said that he had a very traumatic experience when, at age nine, his mother left him and his four-year-old sister unattended in a motel room in Great Falls, Montana, for two days.

Brautigan was raised in poverty; he told his daughter stories of his mother sifting rat feces out of their supply of flour before making flour-and-water pancakes.

His novel So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away (1982) is loosely based on childhood events, including an incident in which Brautigan accidentally shot the brother of a close friend in the ear, injuring him slightly.

[5] On December 14, 1955, Brautigan was arrested for throwing a rock through a police station window, supposedly to be sent to prison and fed.

At the Oregon State Hospital Brautigan was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and clinical depression, and was treated with electroconvulsive therapy 12 times.

During the 1960s Brautigan became involved in the burgeoning San Francisco counterculture scene, often appearing as a performance poet at concerts and participating in the various activities of The Diggers.

In the summer of 1961, while camping in southern Idaho with his wife and daughter Ianthe, Brautigan completed the novels A Confederate General from Big Sur and Trout Fishing in America.

[11] A Confederate General from Big Sur was his debut novel, published in 1964, and met with little critical or commercial success.

Literary critics labeled him the writer most representative of the emerging countercultural youth movement of the late 1960s, even though he was said to be contemptuous of hippies.

He published five novels (the first of which, The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966, had been written in the mid-1960s) and a collection of short stories, Revenge of the Lawn (1971).

Generally dismissed by literary critics and increasingly abandoned by his readers, Brautigan found his popularity waned throughout the late 1970s and 1980s.

Brautigan's alcoholism and depression caused him to become increasingly abusive[22] and Alder ended the relationship on December 24, 1962, though the divorce was not finalized until July 28, 1970.

Brautigan continued to reside in San Francisco after the separation, while Alder settled in Manoa, Hawaii, and became a feminist and an anti-Vietnam War activist.

[4] In 1984, at age 49, Richard Brautigan had moved to Bolinas, California, where he was living alone in a large, old house that he had bought with his earnings years earlier.

[25] The body was found on the living room floor, in front of a large window that, though shrouded by trees, looked out over the Pacific Ocean.

Due to the decomposition of the body it is speculated that Brautigan had ended his life over a month earlier, on September 16, 1984, days after talking to friend Marcia Clay on the telephone (neighbors heard a loud noise that Sunday while watching an NFL game[3]).

According to Michael Caines, writing in The Times Literary Supplement, the story that Brautigan left a suicide note that simply read: "Messy, isn't it?"

"[28] Because Brautigan frequently wrote in first-person and included locations and events with which he is associated, readers might assume his work is autobiographical.

Writing in 1972, Long Island University professor Terrence Malley points out that "Brautigan's books are for the most part both directly autobiographical and curiously elusive .

[29] Several later authors have cited Brautigan as an influence, including Haruki Murakami,[30] W. P. Kinsella,[31] Christopher Moore[32] and Sarah Hall.

The album Boo, Forever by indie rock band Field Guides takes its title from the Brautigan poem of the same name.

The publication contained seeds to be planted, packed in sleeves which carry poems by Daulerio and illustrations by Scott Hutchison.

Hutchison took his own life in May 2018, and in September an expanded version was published as a chapbook, the original edition having sold out, containing a foreword by Ianthe Brautigan and an afterword by Scottish poet Michael Pedersen.