You Can’t Catch Death: A Daughter’s Memoir

Ianthe Brautigan was nine years old when her father, the Californian Beat writer Richard Brautigan, first told her he wanted to commit suicide. She was twenty-four, when he finally took his own life with a shotgun in the Montana countryside. This memoir is Ianthe’s attempt to make sense of her famous father’s suicide. What emerges in the book is a moving account of a complex, witty, caring man. A hero of the ’50s and ’60s counter-culture who had to endure watching fame and critical praise fade away as he drifted into relative obscurity. Written with a clarity of recall, an understanding wit and with real control and pace, You Can’t Catch Death is a fascinating insight into the legendary man, and the daughter left behind.

Reviews of You Can’t Catch Death: A Daughter’s Memoir

* poignant and restrained…Brautigan's portrait of her father is as warm as it is unflinching, as generous as it is honest. It is also the story of one woman's journey towards forgiveness, not only of the father who abandoned her, but also of herself, for having 'failed' in some way to save him. Sunday Herald * touching … wonderfully distilled. London Review of Books * What emerges is a frank and compelling narrative of great integrity which details fascinatingly the minutiae of her father's life…There is absolutely no self-indulgence in You Can't Catch Death, only a desire to lay Richard Brautigan's ghost to rest with dignity The Herald