Sombrero Fallout
by Richard Brautigan

I have a collection of short stories coming out in early 2020 and one of them (the very last one) has a very strong Richard Brautigan influence.  I love his writing. This book is a gem. Brilliant. Funny. Short. Chapters are unbelievably un-chapter-like. And they all have crazy names. Like Hamburgers. July. Temperature. Berries.

It’s the story of an American writer who is obsessed with his ex-lover, a Japanese woman with extremely long, black hair. He imagines who she is sleeping with and it is at the point of driving him crazy. And then he finds one very long, black hair…

Meanwhile, he begins a story about a sombrero that mystically falls from the sky then rips it into pieces in exasperation. But the story takes on a life of its own.

As the Japanese woman dreams…

And that’s it. Weird, wonderful, so very Brautigan and so tragic.

Love it.