believe about the books they introduce. The Introduction to Trout Fishing In America has no opinions about the matter. Perhaps it believes that no book that is truly loved can ever be obscure. Perhaps it knows that fashion, in literature and clothes and places to fish, will come around again, like a trout rising to feast on the evening gnat-clouds and sinking back into the dark waters.
IV.
Imagine an empty stage. Or an empty trout pool. Or a person who has figured out how to make a book in a way that nobody has made a book before. Part surrealist manifesto, part realist tract, partly an elusive joy that’s hard to explain to others, which is why you hand it to them and say ‘Read this’ and why you are so happy it is back in print once more. You hope that this may be the beginning of a Brautigan revival, but mostly you just want people to read it and be happy. Or be puzzled. Or be alive.
Signed in mayonnaise,
The Introduction to Trout Fishing In America
Trout Fishing In America says nothing in response.
It waits for you to begin the book.
CONTENTS
The Cover for Trout Fishing in America
Another Method of Making Walnut Catsup
The Ballet for Trout Fishing in America
The Last Year the Trout Came up Hayman Creek
The Autopsy of Trout Fishing in America
Trout Fishing in America Terrorists
Trout Fishing in America with the FBI
The Shipping of Trout Fishing in America Shorty to Nelson Algren
The Mayor of the Twentieth Century
The Teddy Roosevelt Chingader’
Footnote Chapter to “The Shipping of Trout Fishing in America Shorty to Nelson Algren”
The Pudding Master of Stanley Basin
Room 208, Hotel Trout Fishing in America
A Note on the Camping Craze that is Currently Sweeping America
A Return to the Cover of This Book
Trout Fishing on the Street of Eternity
Sandbox Minus John Dillinger Equals What?
The Last Time I Saw Trout Fishing in America
The Last Mention of Trout Fishing in America Shorty
