Brautigan

 http://www.brautigan.net/trout.html

Inspiration

Preliminary work on the novel actually began the previous year when Brautigan, determined to write prose instead of poetry, experimented with short stories hoping they would lead to a novel. He abandoned the manuscript for The Tower of Babel, a mystery novel, after struggling to write 167 pages. On 16 September 1960, Brautigan began writing an experimental story he called "Trout Fishing in America" in which he imagined trout made from steel and introduced a character called Trout Fishing in America. The results, later incorporated in the first chapter of his most famous novel, were the beginning of a new (for Brautigan) literary form, the prose poem.

As Brautigan sought chapter content for his evolving manuscript he turned first to previously written material. A short story written in fall 1959, about two unemployed artists from New Orleans Brautigan met in Washington Square Park and how they imagined spending a pleasant, and warm, winter in a mental institution became the "A Walden Pond for Winos" chapter. Oddly, this is one of the few chapters in the novel that does not mention trout fishing.

Brautigan developed this penchant for using found materials as the basis for additional chapters, and continued to use the technique throughout his writing career. For example, inspiration came from Brautigan's reading and research at the Mechanics' Institute Library. Located at 57 Post Street, the location of the original building, built in 1855 and destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the library maintained a collection of nearly 160,000 books in 1961. Brautigan included a list of twenty-two classic books about fishing in found in the Mechanics' Library in the "Trout Death by Port Wine" chapter. Four recipes he found in cookbooks at the library were included in the "Another Method of Making Walnut Catsup" chapter. A cut up description of Richard Lawrence Marquette, taken from a poster seeking his arrest by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, prompted the "Trout Fishing in America with the FBI" chapter. The signature at the end of the chapter is in Brautigan's handwriting. "The Mayonnaise Chapter" is almost verbatim the text of a letter Brautigan found in a used book store.

Brautigan also incorporated people he knew into his evolving novel. Trout Fishing in America Shorty and the chapters "The Shipping of Trout Fishing in America Shorty to Nelson Algren" and "Footnote Chapter to 'The Shipping of Trout Fishing in America Shorty to Nelson Algren'" were all inspired by a legless man called Shorty who propelled himself around North Beach on roller skate wheels mounted to a board. Brautigan connected this individual to Nelson Algren's fictional character, Railroad Shorty, and proposed shipping him to Algren in Chicago, Illinois, where he might become a museum exhibit.

Pierre Delattre credits Shorty with inspiring Brautigan past the frustration of not being able to capture the magic of "his trout fishing book" on paper. Delattre recalls a fishing trip with Brautigan and how he lamented his writer's block.

"Then one afternoon back in North Beach we went into a hardware store so that he could buy some chickenwire for his bird cage. Suddenly he seized the pen from my pocket, the notebook from my shoulder bag, ran out and over to a park bench, and started to scribble a story about a man who finds a used trout stream in the back of a hardware store. The next day, we stopped to chat with a legless-armless man on a rollerboard who sold pencils. Brautigan called him "Trout Fishing in America Shorty," and wrote a story about him. From then on, trout fishing ceased to be a memory of the past, but the theme of immediate experience and Brautigan's book made him a rich and famous writer" (Delattre 53-54).

Brautigan drew from his childhood memories to create chapters. Memories of Johnnie Hiebert, a childhood friend in Eugene, Oregon, who suffered from a rupture and drank pitchers of Kool-Aid contributed to the chapter and character called "The Kool-Aid Wino."

The acquistion of camping gear—a tent, sleeping bags, pots, and a Coleman gas stove and lantern— provided the basis for the chapter "A Note on the Camping Craze That Is Currently Sweeping America."

Brautigan drafted "The Cover of Trout Fishing in America" in February 1961 in which he described the Benjamin Franklin statue in nearby Washington Square Park (see "The Front Cover," below).

"The Cleveland Wrecking Yard" chapter came from real-life experience according to San Francisco artist Kenn Davis.

"Somewhere in 1958—although my memory is faulty about this date—I rented a rundown cottage on a hill and decided I wanted a bigger window overlooking the city of San Francisco," Davis said. "A mile or so away was the Cleveland Wrecking Company yard [2800 3rd Street; Quint Street], where all kinds of house salvage was stored. I called Dick and told him I was going there and [asked] did he want to come along—so we did; he found the place fascinating, and lo and behold he wrote about it in Trout Fishing in America. Poets can find inspiration anywhere. As it was, I bought a large window and we drove it to my shack, where I installed it to my satisfaction" (Davis, Kenn. Letter to John F. Barber. 9 June 2004.)

William Hjortsberg says Brautigan learned of The Cleveland Wrecking Yard, a demolition business on Quint Street, in San Francisco, that sold dismantled homes in bits and pieces, from Price Dunn. Intrigued by what Dunn said of the place, Brautigan visited it himself, sparked with the idea of selling used trout streams by the foot (Hjortsberg 182).

Learning of Ernest Hemingway's suicide (2 July 1961, in Ketchum, Idaho, forty miles from where he was camping and fishing), Brautigan wrote "The Last Time I Saw Trout Fishing in America" chapter in which he included memories of his step-father Robert "Tex" Porterfield and the winter they spent together in Great Falls, Montana. Porterfield was the first person to tell Brautigan about trout fishing. Hemingway was Brautigan's artistic father, a writer he was often said to emulate, and whose death he certainly did.

The chapter "In the California Bush" evolved from weekend trips to Mill Valley to visit friend Lou Embee and his girlfriend who lived in a remote cabin overlooking San Francisco Bay. Brautigan called Embee "Pard" in the chapter.

By mid-March 1962, Brautigan had completed the manuscript for his first novel.