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Chicago Tribune
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Biblioracle: Tom Robbins has died at 92. He was one of the writers who shaped me.
It feels like just about every month I'm coming here to remember a recently deceased writer who had some profound effect on my life as a reader. This month it's Tom Robbins, author of numerous classic novels, including 'Another Roadside Attraction,' 'Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,' 'Still Life with Woodpecker' and 'Skinny Legs and All,' among others. Robbins died in his home of La Conner, Washington, on Feb. 9, at the age of 92. I suppose confronting these occasions is the inevitable byproduct of aging. I will turn 55 in less than two months, and the established writers who were full-fledged adults when I was still a fledging are now quite elderly. But also, this is triggered by an increasing wonder about how I've become the person I am. In a lot of ways, my reading has made me, and Tom Robbins is one of the writers you can find in the DNA of my sensibilities. The specific Robbins book that shook me up was 'Still Life with Woodpecker,' published in 1980 with a distinctive cover modeled after a pack of Camel cigarettes, a woodpecker clutching a match in its beak standing in for Joe Camel. Like all of Robbins' novels, 'Still Life with Woodpecker' defies easy description. It involves an exiled princess, Leigh-Cheri, living near Seattle with her royal parents, who wants to save the planet but runs afoul of fellow progressives who fight for influence. Then some aliens show up who think Leigh-Cheri is descended from a different race of aliens that are their enemies. This is in maybe the first 30 pages of the book. To summarize the rest would take a couple more columns-worth of length. Robbins reportedly wrote sentence by sentence, which may seem to describe how everything is written, but he did it literally, refining a single sentence over many hours before moving on to the next. The shambolic nature of his plots has a Scheherazade flavor, a storyteller unfurling a tale bit by bit with no aim other than keeping the reader invested moment-to-moment, failure being the penalty of death. I would've been maybe 15 years old when I read 'Still Life with Woodpecker,' old enough to be curious about everything adult, too young to understand much of it, but the right age to find it all quite seductive. Robbins' work was rooted in the hippie counter-culture ethos of the '60s that I was too young to experience, and which the Reagan revolution was in the business of actively erasing by the time I was reading him. The books were silly, designed to entertain, but also filled with aphorisms that forced you to pause for a moment or two. For example: 'There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who are smart enough to know better.' Or this one: 'We are our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.' Or this: 'It's never too late to have a happy childhood.' At the time, I took these lines as examples of adult wisdom being handed down to a new initiate. The untethered, anarchic, comic brio of Robbins' novels feels incompatible with today's world, as though the intervening years have been explicitly designed to stamp out this spirit and replace it with something that can be bought and sold, something governable. Sissy Hankshaw, the protagonist of 'Even Cowgirls Get the Blues' is born with oversized thumbs, which make her the world's best hitchhiker. This is Robbins in a nutshell, a reminder that what makes us unique is our greatest power. John Warner is the author of 'Why They Can't Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.' Twitter @biblioracle Book recommendations from the Biblioracle John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you've read. 1. 'Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times' by Joel Richard Paul 2. 'Dracula' by Bram Stoker 3. 'Beat to Quarters (Hornblower Saga)' by C.S. Forester 4. 'A Calamity of Souls' by David Baldacci 5. 'The Pelican Brief' by John Grisham — Derek S., Eugene, Oregon I'm going with something of a suspense thriller, though in a different milieu than what Derek has here. My hope is that going a bit off the previous path opens up an exciting new experience, 'Last Resort' by Andrew Lipstein. 1. 'The Noble Rot Book: Wine from another Galaxy' by Dan Keeling and Mark Andrew 2. 'Three Years with Grant' by Sylvanus Cadwallader 3. 'Defusing Armageddon: Inside NEST, America's Secret Nuclear Bomb Squad' by Jeffrey T. Richelson 4. 'Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures' by Katherine Rundell 5. 'Mr. Churchill in The White House: The Untold Story of a Prime Minister and Two Presidents' By Robert Schmuhl — Andy A., Crystal Lake This book is better than 10 years old, but my guess is that things have not gotten demonstrably better: 'Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety' by Eric Schlosser. 1. 'Lincoln in the Bardo' by George Saunders 2. 'The Midnight Library' by Matt Haig 3. 'The Island Child' by Molly Aitken 4. 'Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss' by Margaret Renkl 5. 'The Wedding People' by Alison Espach — Sheryl L., Northbrook This calls for some Lydia Millet. The choice is 'Dinosaurs.'
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
South Korean Actress Kim Sae-ron Dead at 24
Kim Sae-ron, the South Korean actress who appeared in the Netflix series Bloodhounds, has died at the age of 24. Kim was found dead at her home in Seoul, South Korea after a friend discovered her body after she missed a scheduled meeting, police told the Yonhap News Agency (via Reuters). No cause of death was provided, but foul play is not suspected. More from Rolling Stone Biff Wiff, 'I Think You Should Leave' Actor, Has Died Tom Robbins, Counterculture Scribe of 'Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,' Dead at 92 Tony Roberts, Stage and Screen Actor Known for Woody Allen Films, Dead at 85 An actress since the age of nine, Kim became one of South Korea's most promising young stars when she starred in 2009's A Brand New Day, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won her several acting awards. The following year, at the age of 10, she appeared in The Man From Nowhere, the country's highest-grossest film in 2010. As Kim entered her teens, she starred in the Cannes-bound A Girl at My Door in 2014, and continued to land roles in movies and television up through the early 2020s. However, in May 2022, Kim's career stalled following a much-publicized DUI arrest following a car accident that cut off power to the Gangnam District in Seoul, and resulted in Kim incurring personal financial difficulties due to the damages. Following the scandal and a self-imposed hiatus, Kim was cast in the Netflix crime series Bloodhounds but was largely edited out due to the DUI incident, and the actress dropped out of subsequent acting roles, Variety reports. Kim did film the upcoming movie Guitarman prior to her death; the film has not yet been released. 'She said she'd make money through acting again after making a comeback with the film 'Guitarman,'' a friend told local media Osen Sunday. 'She was preparing to open a cafe, while also getting ready to return to the entertainment industry. I still can't believe it.' Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Best 'Saturday Night Live' Characters of All Time Denzel Washington's Movies Ranked, From Worst to Best 70 Greatest Comedies of the 21st Century
The Guardian
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Tom Robbins obituary
Tom Robbins, who has died aged 92, was one of the last cult novelists to emerge from the 1960s. Often compared for their humour to Kurt Vonnegut or Richard Brautigan, his books took their place on the shelves alongside novels by Richard Farina, Peter S Beagle, Philip K Dick, Ken Kesey and Thomas Pynchon. Rolling Stone magazine called his first novel, Another Roadside Attraction (1971), 'the quintessential novel of the 60s', but it did poorly until the paperback edition became a word-of-mouth bestseller. The next, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976), was his biggest hit. Its heroine was Sissy Hankshaw, a world-class hitchhiker whose oversized thumbs lead her to the all-female Rubber Rose Ranch run by Bonanza Jellybean. Pynchon wrote a blurb for it, saying, 'I hope this book … winds up changing the brainscape of America, which sure could use it'. Instead, it wound up as a 1993 film by Gus Van Sant, one of the most-panned movies ever, in which Uma Thurman played Sissy. Part of Robbins's cult status reflected the slow gestation of his books. Over the course of 34 years he wrote only eight novels and though he would do reading tours after each one, he eschewed most interviews. I was lucky enough to sit down with him in 2001, as he promoted Fierce Invalids from Hot Climates, and he explained his unusual writing habits. 'I never leave a sentence until it's as good as I can make it, so it meets the soundness of whatever philosophical bullshit I might be propagating, and relates to the sentences which preceded it,' he said. 'It's slow, but the advantage is I don't rewrite, or rather, I rewrite as I'm going along.' As time went by, the critics tried to hang the 60s label as a millstone around Robbins's neck, with Karen Karbo, reviewing Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas in 1994, claiming that 'unless his work was imprinted on you when you were 19 and stoned, you'll find him forever unreadable'. However, it was an epitaph that a growing readership failed to recognise. Robbins claimed his brand of storytelling was inherited from his forebears, who were preachers and sheriffs. Born in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, he grew up in Warsaw, Virginia. His father, George, was a power company executive; his mother, Katharine (nee Robinson), was a nurse, and both his grandfathers were Baptist preachers. Facing disciplinary problems at Warsaw high school, he spent his final year at Hargrave military academy, playing basketball and winning the senior essay prize. Already intent on becoming a novelist, he studied journalism at Washington and Lee University but left after two years, again because of disciplinary problems. He then joined the US air force, serving as a meteorologist in Korea and for the Strategic Air Command in Kansas. Discharged in 1957, he returned to Virginia, enrolling at the Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University) while working on the night sports desk at the Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper, joining there full-time as a copy editor after graduating. He left in 1962, after the paper objected to his using a photo of Sammy Davis Jr in the paper; their Jim Crow policies did not allow photos of black people. He then moved to Seattle, 'as far away from Richmond as possible', and worked at the Seattle Times as an art critic. A month later the arts editor suffered an ulcer and Robbins was editing the section; knowing nothing about classical music, he reviewed a performance of Rossini by riffing on the composer's likeness to the actor Robert Mitchum. In 1963 Robbins took acid for the first time. He quit the paper, made a pilgrimage to Greenwich Village, and returned to write for Seattle Magazine and host a weekly music show, Notes From the Underground, on KRAB radio. He also wrote for Art Forum and Art in America, and in 1965 had a monograph published on the Pacific Northwest artist Guy Anderson. In 1967, after reviewing the Doors in Seattle's local underground paper The Helix, Robbins felt he had finally found his voice, and began to write Another Roadside Attraction, a novel about a circus couple who turn an abandoned diner into Captain Kendrick's Memorial Hot Dog Wildlife Preserve, housing an offbeat menagerie and the mummified corpse of Jesus, stolen from the Vatican. Perhaps his best novels were Still Life With Woodpecker (1980), 'a sort of love story' set inside a Camel cigarette pack, and Jitterbug Perfume (1984), in which a pair of duelling perfumers cross paths with a deposed eighth-century king and his consort, who seek immortality. Most Robbins novels are classic journeys, drawing on the mythic archetypes of Joseph Campbell's work, which he admired. Featuring oddly matched couples drawn to each other, they usually have female leads, with Fierce Invalids (2000) the first to feature a male protagonist, something Robbins had avoided lest the characters became too autobiographical. A number of his books were optioned for films, but none since Cowgirls have been made. Thereafter his involvement in the cinematic world consisted of playing bit parts in various films, including Made in Heaven (1987), Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) and Breakfast of Champions (1999), all directed by his friend Alan Rudolph. Robbins's last novel was Villa Incognito in 2003. In 2005 there was a collection of essays, Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, and in 2009 a novella, B for Beer. His final book was an autobiography, Tibetan Peach Pie (2014). Robbins is survived by his fourth wife, the psychic and actor Alexa D'Avalon, and by three sons, Rip, Kirk and Fleetwood, from previous marriages. Thomas Eugene Robbins, novelist, born 22 July 1932; died 9 February 2025
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tom Robbins, Counterculture Scribe of ‘Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,' Dead at 92
Tom Robbins, the celebrated author whose novels included Skinny Legs and All, Jitterbug Perfume, and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, died Sunday, Feb. 9, The New York Times reports. He was 92. Robbins died at his home in La Conner, Washington. His son Fleetwood confirmed the news but did not provide a cause of death. More from Rolling Stone Tony Roberts, Stage and Screen Actor Known for Woody Allen Films, Dead at 85 Mike Ratledge, Soft Machine Keyboardist and Co-Founder, Dead at 81 Irv Gotti, Music Producer and Murder Inc. Records Co-Founder, Dead at 54 At once an underground favorite and a best-seller, Robbins' comic novels — with their fantastical stories and far-out musings — were distinctly of the counterculture and soon became part of its fabric. He rarely plotted out his books, choosing instead to see where his imagination and characters led him. 'I've always wanted to lead a life of enchantment and writing is part of that,' Robbins told Rolling Stone in 1977. 'Magic is practical and pragmatic — it's making connections between objects, or events, in the most unusual ways. When you do that, the universe becomes a very exciting place. I'm a romantic, and I don't apologize for that. I think it's as valid a way of looking at life as any. And a hell of a lot more fun.' Robbins published his first novel, Another Roadside Attraction (the 'quintessential counterculture novel,' RS declared), in 1971. He would publish seven more, each arriving about four or five years after the last. His final novel, Villa Incognito, arrived in 2003, though he subsequently published a short story collection, Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, in 2005; a novella, B Is for Beer, in 2009; and a memoir (or 'un-memoir,' as he called it) Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life, in 2014. 'Heartbroken to hear about the passing of Tom Robbins,' actress Marisa Tomei wrote on Instagram. 'His books weren't just stories — they were wild, mind-expanding adventures that made you see the world differently. His words were playful, rebellious, and full of magic, reminding us to embrace the strange, chase beauty, and never take life too seriously.' Born July 22, 1932 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, but raised largely outside Richmond, Virginia, Robbins showed a penchant for writing from a young age and expressed his desire to become a novelist as a teenager. His parents, however, pushed him more towards journalism, a career he pursued first in college and then picked up again after a stint in the Air Force. But two distinctly Sixties experiences re-routed Robbins back to his ultimate calling. An LSD trip in 1963 convinced him to quit his day job at a Seattle newspaper and start writing for underground publications. Then, in 1967, while reviewing an awe-inspiring Doors concert, Robbins said he 'finally found [his] voice' and set about writing his first novel a few weeks later. While Another Roadside Attraction failed to garner much attention when it was first published in hardback, the paperback edition steadily became a word-of-mouth hit, especially on college campuses. By the time his next novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, arrived in 1976, Robbins was a well-known quantity garnering both backlash and raves (including from the likes of Thomas Pynchon, who called Cowgirls 'a piece of working magic, warm, funny and sane'). Throughout the rest of his career, Robbins rarely deviated from his distinct style, retaining his devoted fans though sometimes exasperating critics. Despite their myriad out-there elements, his books were often optioned for films, but only one was ever made — Gus Van Sant's 1993 adaptation of Cowgirls, which was a critical and commercial flop. As a parting word in his 1977 Rolling Stone interview, Robbins succinctly captured his singular style and creative approach. 'You can tell people that my goal is to write novels that are like a basket of cherry tomatoes,' he said, 'when you bite into a paragraph, you don't know which way the juice is going to squirt.' Best of Rolling Stone Every Super Bowl Halftime Show, Ranked From Worst to Best The United States of Weed Gaming Levels Up
USA Today
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Tom Robbins dies: Author whose novels were infused with '70s psychedelic vibe was 92
Tom Robbins dies: Author whose novels were infused with '70s psychedelic vibe was 92 Author Tom Robbins, whose novels read like a hit of literary LSD, filled with fantastical characters, manic metaphors and counterculture whimsy, died on Sunday. He was 92. Robbins' death was announced by his wife, Alexa Robbins, on Facebook. The post did not cite a cause. "He was surrounded by his family and loyal pets. Throughout these difficult last chapters, he was brave, funny and sweet," Alexa Robbins wrote. "He asked that people remember him by reading his books." Robbins indulged the hippie sensibilities of young people starting in the early 1970s with books that had an overarching philosophy of what he called "serious playfulness" and a mandate that it should be pursued in the most outlandish ways possible. As he wrote in "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas," "Minds were made for blowing." Robbins' works included "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues", "Another Roadside Attraction" and "Still Life With Woodpecker." Robbins' characters were over the top, off the wall and around the bend. Among them were Sissy Hankshaw, the hitchhiker with the 9-inch thumbs in "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," and Switters, the pacifist CIA operative in love with a nun in "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates." "Skinny Legs and All" featured a talking can of pork and beans, a dirty sock and Turn Around Norman, a performance artist whose act consisted of moving imperceptibly. "What I try to do, among other things, is to mix fantasy and spirituality, sexuality, humor and poetry in combinations that have never quite been seen before in literature," Robbins said in an interview with January magazine in 2000. "And I guess when a reader finishes one of my books ... I would like for him or her to be in the state that they would be in after a Fellini film or a Grateful Dead concert." From newsman to author He was born in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, and grew up there and in Richmond, Virginia, in a family that he once described as "kind of a Southern Baptist version of 'The Simpsons.'" Robbins said he was dictating stories to his mother at age 5 and developed his writing skills further at Washington and Lee University in Virginia working on the school newspaper with Tom Wolfe, who would go on to write "The Right Stuff" and "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." Robbins worked as an editor, reporter and critic for newspapers in Richmond and Seattle, where he moved in the 1960s in search of a more progressive atmosphere than the South offered. He had a writing epiphany while reviewing a 1967 concert by the Doors. "It had jimmied the lock on my language box and smashed the last of my literary inhibitions," he wrote in the 2014 memoir "Tibetan Peach Pie." "When I read over the paragraphs I'd written that midnight, I detected an ease, a freedom of expression, a syntax simultaneously wild and precise." What came next was 1971's "Another Roadside Attraction," the roundabout tale of how the mummified, unresurrected body of Jesus was stolen from the Vatican and ended up at a hot dog stand in the U.S. Northwest. Five years later, his second book, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," in which Sissy hitchhiked her way through a world of sex, drugs and mysticism, made him a cult favorite. His novels often had strong female protagonists, which made him especially popular with women readers. And while he appealed to the youth culture, the literary establishment never warmed to Robbins. Critics said his plots were formulaic and his style overwrought. Robbins wrote his books in longhand on legal pads, producing only a couple of pages a day and with nothing plotted in advance. An attempt at using an electric typewriter ended with the author bashing it with a piece of lumber. He labored over word selection and said he liked to "remind reader and writer alike that language is not the frosting, it's the cake." As a result, his works were overflowing with wild-eyed metaphors. "Word spread like a skin disease in a nudist colony," he wrote in "Skinny Legs and All." In "Jitterbug Perfume" he described a falling man as going down "like a sack of meteorites addressed special delivery to gravity." Robbins, who had three children, lived with his wife, Alexa, in La Conner, Washington, 70 miles north of Seattle.
