You Can't Catch Death: A Daughter's Memoir [Hardcover]

Ianthe Brautigan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 22, 2000

In all of the obituaries and writing about Richard Brautigan that appeared after his suicide, none revealed to Ianthe Brautigan the father she knew. Through it took all of her courage, she delved into her memories, good and bad, to retrieve him, and began to write. You Can't Catch Death is a frank, courageous, heartbreaking reflection on both a remarkable man and the child he left behind.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

His daughter was 24 when quintessential '60s author Richard Brautigan (Trout Fishing in America) killed himself in 1984, and the obituaries were almost as painful for her as his tragic act. "I did not recognize the dignified, brilliant, hysterically funny, and sometimes difficult man who was my father in anything they wrote," says Ianthe Brautigan, who makes it her business to capture those qualities in this poignant memoir. Her recollections of an unsettled childhood bouncing between two free-spirited parents' bohemian homes (in San Francisco, Montana, Hawaii, and Japan) are remarkably free from bitterness, even when she chronicles drunken phone calls from her suicidal father. Alcohol was Richard Brautigan's fatal weakness, prompted by severe depressions rooted in an impoverished, unhappy childhood. But Ianthe also depicts his tenderness and warmth, the magical sessions of impromptu storytelling with writer buddies like Tom McGuane and Jim Harrison, the glamour of meeting movie stars Peter Fonda and Margot Kidder. She comes to terms with the past that always haunted her father when she makes a trip to Oregon to see her grandmother, estranged from Richard for 25 years. Without presuming to solve the mystery of his death, the author reclaims the values of Brautigan's life and work in her touching, sensitively written book. --Wendy Smith

From Publishers Weekly

Richard Brautigan (1937-1984) made a big splash with Trout Fishing in America (1967), whose unbuttoned prose found a ready-made audience in the burgeoning counterculture. Brautigan completed 11 more books of fiction and nine of poetry before he took his own life; he is now remembered as a campus favorite, and a notorious drinker. His daughter Ianthe aims to supplant that portrait with a more complex and tender view; her raw, affecting and largely admiring memoir recalls "R.B." as a father and as a writer. Rather than follow his life, or her own, from the late '60s to the early '80s, Ianthe breaks her book up into short sectionsAsome narrative, some meditative, some impressionisticAin a manner mildly reminiscent of Trout Fishing itself. In one three-page segment, the adult Ianthe tells her own daughter about Richard's suicide. In the next two pages, Ianthe recalls the bike she got for her ninth birthday. The piece after that (one paragraph) is purely lyrical: "Sometimes the love I have for my father overtakes my whole being... " (A series of single paragraphs, scattered throughout, describe Ianthe's dreams.) The elder Brautigan comes off as energetic, affectionate, playful, outrageous and needyAincreasingly so as the '70s wore on. His death and Ianthe's progressive reactions to it dominate much of the book. Ianthe's memoir creates a vivid sense of her continuing loss and shows how she has come to terms with it. Her work should please "R.B."'s still-ardent fans, who will seek (and find) facts about a father, and leave with a new, moving knowledge of his daughter. Author tour. (June) FYI: Ianthe's memoir appears at the same time as her father's newly published novella, An Unfortunate Woman, a forgotten manuscript she discovered (see review in this issue's Fiction Forecasts).
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (May 22, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031225296X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312252960
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #837,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is Not Her Father's Story, May 14, 2000

By 

Corky Gilbert - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Can't Catch Death: A Daughter's Memoir (Hardcover)

Although I began reading You Can't Catch Death with the expectation that it would be about her father, Ianthe Brautigan quickly set me straight; this book is about her. Reading the book provides a fascinating look at her turbulent childhood with a talented, but troubled father. A father who clearly loved his daughter but, just as clearly, didn't quite know what to do with her.

Brautigan the younger is a skilled wordsmith whose first book displays a polish and readability usually associated with more `seasoned' authors. Whether or not you appreciate Richard Brautigan, after reading this book you will appreciate his daughter.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brautigan's Daughter Finds Her Voice, June 9, 2000

By 

MARTIN AVERY (Muskoka, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Can't Catch Death: A Daughter's Memoir (Hardcover)

I love this book. It is as painful to read as going to the funeral of a friend or a writer whose work you loved. It is as rewarding as the grieving process. We've been wondering about Brautigan's daughter, the girl with the stange name, Ianthe, and this book of hers lets us know all about her. This memoir she has taken so long to write suggests she has struggled to find her own voice, as a writer, and I am happy to report that her father's style has influenced her enormously. That's a very good thing. I will look forward to the publication of the next Brautigan and I will be as sad it is not by Richard as I am happy it is by his daughter, Ianthe. Write a novel, Ianthe, write short stories and short short stories, too. We'll be waiting patiently for you.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A daughter's touching tribute, October 1, 2000

By 

Mary G. Longorio "Texasbookgirl" (Eagle Mountain, UT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: You Can't Catch Death: A Daughter's Memoir (Hardcover)

In an effort to reconcile memories, dreams and fears with real life, Ianthe Brautigan writes of her life with father, Richard Brautigan. After he took his own life in 1984, she was left with memories and what-ifs. This book is her journey into remembering and discovering her father and his life. Within the pages of this book lies a healing journey, back to the terrible drinking times, back to the grandmother she never knew, back to treasured morinings at her father's San Francisco apartment, and other times shared with her father. Photos capture the fragments of that life, and let us glimpse again at the shy, wild-haired Brautigan. Somewhere in facing down deamons and fears of this past life, I feel she somehow reclaims her own life and is no longer afraid of the future. This book had a powerful impact on me. The story of a daughter trying to gather the pieces of her life and to set them out to study, is a portrait of courage and grace.