You Can't Catch Death: A Daughter's Memoir
by Ianthe Brautigan
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ianthe BrautiganEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-05-22
ISBN: 031225296X
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Book Reviews of You Can't Catch Death: A Daughter's Memoir
Book Review: "My father had money problems, family problems, and drinking problems, but the biggest problem was that he didn't want to live."
Summary: 4 Stars
Having never heard of the memoirist's famous father, Richard Brautigan, author of, among others, Trout Fishing in America, I'm likely in the minority of those who've read this book by Ianthe Brautigan, his only child. In spite of that, I'm glad I read it. Those of us who've lost a parent tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the lives of our lost loved ones and dwelling on the circumstances of their deaths. I wouldn't even want to try to imagine what it must be like to have had a parent choose to check out. In Ianthe's case, she'd been forewarned repeatedly. Her alcoholic father would often go on and on about wanting to die. How would you get past the wonder that (maybe?) they didn't love you enough to want to remain on earth. It seems, though, that Ianthe has thought through it thoroughly and, thankfully, turned out pretty darn good in spite of it. Not only is there the usual stuff, memories of the time they spent together when she was growing up, which was sometimes spotty due to his mental state and the fact that her parents divorced when she was very young, but she also spends a lot of time recounting dreams she has about him after his death. From the view of an outsider (to the world of Richard Brautigan) book aficionado always happy to hear about a new author, especially someone as unique as he was, I'm thankful to have found him through her (although I read but didn't "get" Trout Fishing in America). However, I probably wouldn't recommend it to the average memoir fan unfamiliar with the father. You Can't Catch Death is exactly what the subtitle claims, "A Daughter's Memoir."
Important companion read: Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan. Also good: The Mercy Papers by Robin Romm, The Summer of Ordinary Ways by Nicole Lea Helget, and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.
Summary of You Can't Catch Death: A Daughter's Memoir
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.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
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