Richard Brautigan's novels are as informal as an open house—everyone and everything is welcome. (p. 54)

"Trout Fishing in America" is not a book for the sportsman to get hooked on. Brautigan is an outdoorsman, but far out. His work abounds with wildlife, but not of the Field and Stream variety. A compleat angler, Brautigan drops his lines into a clear pool of consciousness, and reels in some very strange fish.

Brautigan lures the reader with eclectic bait. He combines the surface finality of Hemingway, the straightforwardness of Sherwood Anderson and the synesthetic guile of Baudelaire. Blunt and sparing with his words, Brautigan packs his creel with evocative symbols. His stories are at once as open as the Pacific Northwest, and as meticulous as a water-bug on Salt Creek. Wandering from stream to stream, Brautigan small-talks, writes letters, concocts recipes, makes love and even catches trout. His stories...