[The guileless and unprepossessing Brautigan style] has finally, after a few tentative passes, collided firmly with the harsh and nasty seventies.

Brautigan's sixth novel, "Willard and His Bowling Trophies," is essentially about sex and violence. Willard, in standard Brautigan fashion, really has very little to do with any of it. He is, in fact, a mysterious papier-mâché bird, housed off the lower floor of a two-unit apartment building, and surrounded by a collection of stolen bowling trophies. Precisely who stole the trophies is not clear, but the original owners are a trio of brothers who lose their jobs, self-respect, and ultimately commit senseless murder in a misguided attempt at revenge. It is, in all, a fairly slim story for 167 pages, but then the art of loose unraveling is a Brautigan cornerstone. This time, however, the unraveling is not a very happy process….

While the rest of the...