Customer Reviews

You Can't Catch Death: A Daughter's Memoir

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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.

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.

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.

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Ianthe Brautigan stays on target throughout her memoir -- as the daughter of Richard Brautigan, and the daughter of a father who killed himself. Brautigan turns out to be an articulate author, and she expresses her feelings very openly. I feel callous saying that this is an enlightening read for R. Brautigan fans, because much of I. Brautigan's drive derives from her troubled feelings about him. But the book is also a biography of her father, the ways he lived (as well as the way he died, which is vividly described). While reading, I felt it was a reliable biography, from the POV of someone very close to him, who understood him, and had her own experiences with respect to growing up his daughter; it was a reliable/subjective biography, which turned out to have merits of its own that an outsider can't match -- for better or worse. What it loses in objectivity, it more than overcomes.

No doubt I. Brautigan has had many other life experiences too, but very impressively she keeps to her misssion to tell the story of her father, his life, his death, her relationship to and evolving feelings about it. I did not expect it to be as well-done as it is. Kudos, as well as my sympathy to the author who indeed had an unfortunate and difficult time due to his suicide. Regarding R. Brautigan, fans will appreciate her anectodes and stories, despite their coming from the place they do -- of having to learn that she can not "catch death."

My first Richard Brautigan work was "Trout Fishing In America" which I read in the late 60s. I was -- and still am -- enchanted by his poetic visions of life. There is something very pure and absolutely wonderful in the way he wrote. For the next several years, I made it a point to seek out his books whenever I visited bookstores. Then, in the mid-70s, life became busy with family and work, and I lost touch with this sensitive poet and his little books of sparkling wit and beauty. In May 2000, I unpacked a box and found again Brautigan's beauty books that had been packed away for the preceding 25 year or so. I stopped unpacking, went outside, sat down beneath a tree, and read the books I had of his again -- "Trout Fishing In America", "In Watermelon Sugar" (my favorite), "The Pill Versus The Sprinhill Disaster", and "Rommel Drives On Deep Into Egypt". The sweet memories of his writings flooded back to me -- here was a truly sensitive soul so full of music and poetry, a unique way of seeing the world, and a beautiful way of expressing it. My interest rekindled, I wanted to find all the books I had missed of his in the intervening years, and learned of his suicide in 1984... I discovered his daughter's book, and read the story of her father through her eyes. It's also a book about herself, about her coming to grips with the tragedy and terrible pain of her father's death, about her journey to Oregon to see her father's mother and come to grips with the poor and abusive boyhood that Richard had kept hidden from his family. We see Richard Brautigan and come to know him as the sensitive, troubled, eloquent, and deeply beautiful soul he was, and we hear it through his daughter's tenderness and love. Yes, I'm sure Richard would be very proud of his daughter -- and very happy too. I truly hope we hear more from Ianthe. She has her father's gift of poetry and expression, and she has her own voice.

This was a lovely book. I remember how saddened I was to learn that Richard Brautigan had taken his own life. His books had been a source of pleasure during my college years. I picked up this book in hopes of some insight into the reason for his death and was rewarded with much more than I could have hoped for. The vignettes of life with her father and dealing with his death were so immediate. The scenes stay in my mind and the beauty of the writing stays in my heart. This is a beautiful portrait of Richard Brautigan, his daughter and their love for one another.

This is a must read for any fan of Brautigan. Ianthe has put together a book that sheds a very revealing light on her life with her father, her willingnes to cope, his alcoholism, use of his talent and fishing. I enjoyed her comments and insight into the fishing stories, the observations of the scenery, the wilderness and feeling the life of her father's past. Her trip to Eugene, OR is a spiritually challenging and moving portion of the book. Literally following his footsteps, in more ways than one, this book is on a shelf in my library with all of her daddy's first editions. I am proud and thrilled, I'm sure he would be too!

This is beautiful poetic recounting is told in a pastiche of dreams, poems, sunlight and shadows, facts and feelings. It has all the information a Brautigan fan could wish for--he never drove a car, fell all over himself laughing at Young Frankenstein, burned all his telephones--and yet I should think it would be helpful for any survivor of parental suicide. Her struggle to get at the why of it is really poignant and universal. I could have done without the morbid details, however, and felt myself getting depressed as I read, but you can't fault her for being totally honest. I am so grateful to Ianthe (now I know why this is the perfect name for a poet's daughter) for writing this book, and believe she will find she has others to write. The big disappointment of this book is the photographs which are mostly of poor quality and not relevant.

Ianthe's first book is perfectly lovely. It achieves just the right tone in eulogizing, mourning and seeking after her father -- respectful without being overweening, comic without being self-conscious, and truthful without giving the upper hand to either her father's talent or his problems. I'm sure her father would have loved the book -- but then it would be a different book if he'd lived, wouldn't it?

There are a fair number of poetic images worthy of a Brautigan -- the rain becomes Richard's tears, a typewriter is left unplugged to keep her father from temptation, her father's ashes remain unburied for reasons you'll have to read about -- but there are also stretches of Ianthe's unique voice, her level-headedness and practicality -- traits which seem to have skipped her father's generation.

There are many chapters so quotable I've already sent them to my writer-friends. There are images so poignant that I'm crying now just remembering them. And there are laughs to alleviate the hurt.

A marvelous first work. I hope she has several more stories to tell.

An ardent introspective of a loving father and maverick writer.Ianthe Brautigan brings forth the complexity and tenderness past biographies and articles have lacked.She peels away the ambigous hazy portrait of this profound and innovative writer, and elicites a faithful,candid memoir that details his faults and quirks as only she can.Weaving us back and forth through time,she evokes his mind tickling prose hand in hand with the dark mordant wit of his writings.A memorable, healing and thought provoking book that faces loss,and suicide up front and barenaked.Brautigan rises to the occasion and her writing style stands tall on it's own!Encapturing, a must read!