The Little-Known Novella that Puts the Sun in Your Pocket

By Nickolas Butler    |   Wednesday, March 04, 2015 - Off the Shelf About two years ago I was perusing the shelves of Louise Erdrich’s marvelous bookstore, Birchbark Books, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when, inexplicably, as if magnetized or drawn by some irresistible sexual attraction, I plucked Richard Brautigan’s 1967 novella Trout Fishing in America off the shelf. I do not know why exactly, but I suspect I was intrigued by the title and certainly at least dimly aware of Brautigan’s once white-hot literary fame.  Anyway, I hardly need an excuse at all. I’m a book junkie and that day I walked out with Trout Fishing in America, Erdrich’s The Round House, and Patti Smith’s autobiography, Just Kids. In the coming months, I finished The Round House (wonderful) and Just Kids (I have an unhealthy fascination with Sam Shepard, so those parts had me swooning) and about a dozen other books. And then, a year went by . . . Trout Fishing in America went unread. But, one night, in search of a short book, I looked over my shelves, and there was Trout Fishing in America, a little over a hundred pages long, patiently waiting for me. I took it into bed and there devoured it in a matter of hours, which is rare... READ FULL POST