Jubilee Hitchhiker

Jubilee Hitchhiker
Author: William Hjortsberg
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 1454
Release: 2012-04-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1619020459

Confident and robust, Jubilee Hitchhiker is an comprehensive biography of late novelist and poet Richard Brautigan, author of Troutfishing in America and A Confederate General from Big Sur, among many others. When Brautigan took his own life in September of 1984 his close friends and network of artists and writers were devastated though not entirely surprised. To many, Brautigan was shrouded in enigma, erratic and unpredictable in his habits and presentation. But his career was formidable, an inspiration to young writers like Hjortsberg trying to get their start. Brautigan's career wove its way through both the Beat–influenced San Francisco Renaissance in the 1950s and the "Flower Power" hippie movement of the 1960s; while he never claimed direct artistic involvement with either period, Jubilee Hitchhiker also delves deeply into the spirited times in which he lived. As Hjortsberg guides us through his search to uncover Brautigan as a man the reader is pulled deeply into the writer's world. Ultimately this is a work that seeks to connect the Brautigan known to his fans with the man who ended his life so abruptly in 1984 while revealing the close ties between his writing and the actual events of his life. Part history, part biography, and part memoir this etches the portrait of a man destroyed by his genius.

Falling Angel

Falling Angel
Author: William Hjortsberg
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2012-03-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1453246584

Edgar Award Finalist: The hunt for a vanished singer leads a detective into the depths of the occult in this “terrific” novel (Stephen King). Big-band frontman Johnny Favorite was singing for the troops when a Luftwaffe fighter squadron strafed the bandstand, killing the crowd and leaving the singer near death. The army returned him to a private hospital in upstate New York, leaving him to live out his days as a vegetable while the world forgot him. But Louis Cyphre never forgets. Cyphre had a contract with the singer, stipulating payment upon Johnny’s death—payment that will be denied as long as Johnny clings to life. When Cyphre hires private investigator Harry Angel to find Johnny at the hospital, Angel learns that the singer has disappeared. It is no ordinary missing-person’s case. Everyone he questions dies soon after, as Angel’s investigation ensnares him in a bizarre tangle of black magic, carnival freaks, and grisly voodoo. When the sinister Louis Cyphre begins appearing in Angel’s dreams, the detective fears for his life, his sanity, and his soul. Falling Angel was the basis for the Alan Parker film Angel Heart, starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, and Lisa Bonet. This ebook features an illustrated biography of William Hjortsberg including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.

You Can't Catch Death

You Can't Catch Death
Author: Ianthe Brautigan
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2001-07-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780312264185

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.

So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away

So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away
Author: Richard Brautigan
Publisher: Canongate Books
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2011-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1847677487

In a small Pacific Northwest town we meet a young man who has shot dead his best friend with a gun. The novel deals with the repercussions of this tragedy: the anguish, regret, despair and bittersweet romance. Typical of Brautigan's singular style, So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away is a beautifully written, brooding novel. Its autobiographical prose is a fitting epitaph to this complex, contradictory and often misunderstood writer.

Nevermore

Nevermore
Author: William Hjortsberg
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2012-03-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1453246592

DIVSir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini team up to search for a literary-minded killer/div DIVIt is 1923 and a beautiful young woman has just been found outside a tenement, bones crushed, head ripped from her shoulders. A few stories above, her squalid apartment has been ransacked, and twenty-dollar gold pieces litter the floor. The window frame is smashed. She seems to have been hurled from the building by a beast of impossible strength, and the only witness claims to have seen a long-armed ape fleeing the scene. The police are baffled, but one reporter recognizes the author of the bloody crime: the long-dead Edgar Allan Poe./divDIV /divDIVA psychopath is haunting New York City, imitating the murders that made Poe’s stories so famous. To Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the killing spree is of purely academic interest. But when Poe’s ghost appears in Doyle’s hotel room, the writer and the magician begin to suspect that the murders may hold a clue to understanding death itself./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of William Hjortsberg including rare photos from the author’s personal collection./div

Toro! Toro! Toro!

Toro! Toro! Toro!
Author: William Hjortsberg
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 168
Release: 1974
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Symbiography

Symbiography
Author: William Hjortsberg
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2012-03-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1453246614

DIVIn postapocalyptic America, a solitary man crafts the world’s latest form of escapism: dreams/div DIVFor eighty-five years, Par Sondak has crafted dreams. Each night he retires, probes attached to his sleeping body, and builds magnificent worlds for the people of the City to enjoy. His dreams have been bestsellers for decades, and he has more than three hundred still in circulation. Sondak’s niche is escapist fun; his current project is a ten-hour swords-and-sandals epic. More than a month’s sleep has gone into the dream, and when he completes it, his public will clamor for more./divDIV /divDIVBut when he isn’t asleep, this rotund, 105-year-old man sits on his terrace and enjoys a view of the American wasteland. Beyond Sondak’s laser-guarded walls, herds of Nomads lurk, scavenging for food and making sacrifices to pagan gods. Lately these savage men have stirred Sondak’s curiosity. But attempting to understand them might just destroy the kingdom his dreams have built./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of William Hjortsberg including rare photos from the author’s personal collection./div

Angel's Inferno

Angel's Inferno
Author: William Hjortsberg
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2021-08-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1504067177

A 1950s amnesiac and hard-boiled detective sets out for revenge in this blend of mystery, supernatural horror, and metaphysical fiction. Private investigator Harry Angel is in a jam. Handcuffed in his apartment along with the cops and a corpse, he stands accused of violently murdering three people. The good news is he knows who did it. But in order to exonerate himself, Harry must first make his escape—and figure out his own identity. With the authorities hot on his heels, Harry travels from New York and Boston to Paris and the Vatican in search of an elusive stage magician. Eventually piecing together his mysterious past, he descends into the dark world of the occult. And very soon he will have vengeance upon the devil himself . . . A terrifying thriller, Angel’s Inferno is the long-awaited follow-up to the Edgar Award–nominated noir suspense novel Falling Angel, the basis of the film Angel Heart. Praise for Falling Angel “Terrific . . . One of a kind . . . I’ve never read anything remotely like it.” —Stephen King “A chilling homage to the hard-boiled detective novel of the Raymond Chandler school.” —The New York Times “A near perfect book . . . Not since Psycho changed the bathing habits of thousands has a novelist so completely turned conceptions inside out.” —Los Angeles Times

Ring of Bone: Collected Poems

Ring of Bone: Collected Poems
Author: Lew Welch
Publisher: City Lights Publishers
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2012-06-19
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0872865797

"Lew Welch writes lyrical poems of clarity, humor, and dark probings . . . jazz musical phrasings of American speech is one of Welch's clearest contributions." ? Gary Snyder Lew Welch was a brilliant and troubled poet, legendary among his Beat peers. He disappeared in 1971, leaving a suicide note behind. Ring of Bone collects poems, songs, and some drawings, documenting the full sweep of his creative output from his early years until his death. First published by legendary poetry editor Donald Allen, this new edition includes photos, a biographic timeline, and a statement of poetics gleaned from Welch's own writing.