A melancholy book that has most of the charm Brautigan always displays, but not as much of the humor that I love in much of Brautigan's work. I wonder the extent to which Brautigan's declining mental health contributed to the darker nature of the book- he committed suicide two years after this was published.

I had become so quiet and so small in the grass by the pond that I was barely noticeable, hardly there. I think they had forgotten all about me. I sat there watching their living room shining out of the dark beside the pond. It looked like a fairy tale functioning happily in the post-World War II gothic of America before television crippled the imagination of America and turned people indoors and away from living out their own fantasies with dignity.

An interesting side-note- I picked this up after reading that Brautigan was one of [a:Haruki Murakami|3354|Haruki Murakami|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1285812707p2/3354.jpg]'s favorite authors- that inspired me to find a Brautigan novel I hadn't read.