"Richard Brautigan was a literary idol of the 1960sand 1970s whose comic genius and iconoclastic vision of American life caught the imagination of young people everywhere. He came to age during the Haight-Ashbury period and has been called "the last of the Beats. " His early books were required reading for the hip generation, and on its publication Trout Fishing in America became an interantional bestseller. An indescribable romp, the novel is best summed up in one word: mayonnaise. This new edition includes an introduction by the poet Billy Collins, who first encountered Brautigan's work as a student in California. " -- cover, p. [4].