Rating: 
Summary: Eerie in the context of Brautigan's life
Review: This was the last book Richard Brautigan wrote before he committed suicide. Reading with that in mind, this book takes on an eeriness and relevance otherwise missing. It is written in the form of a travel journal, a real journal, with long periods of missing entries. But the crux of this book lies in the narrator's attempt to understand death. The house he currently rents was previously owned by a woman who killed herself there. The narrator also has a good friend who is losing her battle with cancer. It's as if Brautigan was wrestling with the idea of death. Whether his suicide means he figured it out, or failed to, is unknown. This book is a better look into his final years than a good story, but it's full of typical Brautigan humor and wonderful writing.
Rating:
Summary: long time no see
Review: When was the last time that I read Brautigan's books or read about him. It was probably when Jan Kerouac's "Trainsong" was translated into Japanese almost ten years ago. Jack Kerouac's daughter described Brautigan's lecture in Amsterdam a year before he died. Jan Kerouac passed away too in mid-nineties.Now this Brautigan's posthumous book reminds me of an atmosphere of early eighties; not too much industrialization and 'do it ourselves.' But this book is not so simple. The narrator went to cemeteries everywhere. And every time he tried to talk about an "unfortunate woman" who hung herself, he got off the subject. Hatred for LA-style cities, the sound of a woman making love in Berkeley, a photograph of him and a chicken in Hawaii, etc. These episodes are funny but, on the other hand, somewhat depressing. Nostalgic, witty and a little sad. It's unmistakably a Brautigan.
Rating: 
Summary: Brautigan's final book is a true treasure
Review: With 'An Unfortunate Woman,' Richard Brautigan's many fans are given a final taste of the writing style that earned him such initial, well-deserved success. Brautigan here demonstrates his great talent at capturing the essence of a situation (in this case a friend's death from cancer) by writing around it, not addressing it up-front and straight-on. By using this technique, one is still able to gain a sense of Brautigan's profound feelings of loss, and his heartbreaking attempts to come to terms with it. The letter to his departed friend at the beginning of the work is a beautiful piece of writing by itself, and I doubt anyone could read it without wanting to read everything that comes after. Thanks to Ianthe Brautigan for publishing this last book of her father's, along with her memoir, thus giving the public a final look into the workings of a truly unique mind.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: Witty, at times hysterically funny, tragic, bittersweet. Above all, brutally honest. I was blown away.
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