Tibetan Peach Pie

Starred review from March 24, 2014
Thomas Pynchon wrote that Tom Robbins’s Even Cowgirls Get the Blues “dazzled his brain,” calling it a “piece of working magic” and Robbins “a world-class storyteller.” Ever the raconteur, Robbins carries us along a magical wonder tour in this high-flying, Zen koan-like, and cinematic tour of some of the episodes in his journey through space and time. Loosely arranged chronologically, we travel with Tommy Rotten—his mother’s pet name for him—from his birth in Statesville, N.C., through his youth in Virginia—including a stint at Hargrave Military Academy—his meteorological training in the military, and his peripatetic pursuit of language and wonder. In San Francisco, three years before he starts his first novel, he “reaffirms his devotion to language, that magical honeycomb of words into which human reality is forever dissolving and from which it continually reemerges, having invented itself anew… a blue dolphin leaping from a sink of dirty dishes.” Along the way, Robbins offers flashes of enlightenment into the writing of each of his novels, from Another Roadside Attraction to Villa Incognito. He reveals that “all those pursuits of mine have been part and parcel of the same overriding compulsion: a lifelong quest to perpetually interface with the Great Mystery (which may or may not be God) or, at the very least, to further expose myself to wonder.” Master storyteller, indeed, Robbins calls us into his tales and with a wink and a nod, never lets us go until we’ve heard it all.

Starred review from April 15, 2014
The imagination behind "Still Life with Woodpecker; Skinny Legs and All; Villa Incognito"; and a children's book about beer ("B Is for Beer"), is now the subject of Robbins's newest collection. Although the author insists that this is not a memoir, he admits that "it waddles and quacks enough like a memoir to be mistaken for one if the light isn't right." At any rate, it is an account of the "absolutely true" events of Robbins's life: his early childhood in rural Appalachia; his stint in Korea, in which he sold toiletries on the black market and unwittingly supplied Communist China with Colgate toothpaste; his many loves and marriages; and his path to writing and to the Pacific Northwest. Spanning more than seven decades, and regions as geographically and culturally diverse as Greenwich Village and Omaha, Robbins's life is a metonymy for the 20th-century American experience: the Depression, war, racism, jazz, the psychedelic Sixties--it's all here. VERDICT Memoir or not, the form suits Robbins's digressive style, philosophical musings, and self-deprecating humor. Each piece stands on its own, but when read side by side they develop into a powerful argument about magic and the necessity of imaginative, interior worlds. [See Prepub Alert, 12/16/13.]--Meagan Lacy, Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ. Indianapolis Libs.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2014

In a memoir likely to be demanded by his many fans, Robbins starts with his Depression-era beginnings in Appalachia as the grandchild of Baptist preachers, then moves through various guides as poet manque, air force weatherman, art critic gone psychedelic, beloved novelist, and countercultural icon. With a one-day laydown on 5/27 and a 150,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2014
The first memoir from the idiosyncratic novelist, who claims that if "it doesn't read like a normal memoir, that may be because I haven't exactly led what most normal people would consider a normal life." Indeed. The narrative--comprised of a series of vignettes from various points in the author's eventful life and appropriately spiked with deliciously mischievous language and philosophical musings--may be "somewhat subject to the effects of mnemonic erosion," but it is piquant and intriguing nonetheless. In roughly chronological order, Robbins (B Is for Beer, 2009, etc.) covers his childhood in Blowing Rock, N.C.; his move to and residence in Richmond, Va., in which he discovered and thrived in the one enclave in town not considered ultraconservative; his time at Hargrave Military Academy and two years at Washington and Lee; his experiences in the Air Force as a meteorologist in Korea and at Strategic Air Command in Nebraska; his post at the Richmond Times-Dispatch; his move to Seattle and eventual assumption of the position of arts critic at the Seattle Times; and his brush with the FBI, who thought he might have been the Unabomber. As can be expected from Robbins, each short section is subject to digressions and thoughtful pauses, only a few of which linger a bit too long. His chronicle of the writing and publication of Another Roadside Attraction (1971) does not occur until nearly halfway through the book, and the author glides through the rest of his oeuvre (Still Life with Woodpecker, Jitterbug Perfume et al.) with less reflection. Most readers, even die-hard Robbins fans, won't mind, however. They will enjoy this peek into the intelligently goofy and always fertile mind of this inventive writer, who riffs on everything from women and drugs to the publishing industry, conceptions of spirituality and the countless culinary wonders of kimchi. The author's detractors will likely find fault, but this is a fitting cap to a sui generis career, equally satisfying in short installments or read straight through.

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Starred review from March 15, 2014
Insisting that this tome is neither autobiography nor memoir, countercultural icon Robbins (Another Roadside Attraction) covers the significant touchstones of his life. Beginning with his humble origins in a succession of Tidewater towns (Blowing Rock, Urbanna, Kilmarnock, Warsaw), Robbins knew that he wanted to write since before he could write. Always marked by his funky orientation and anarchic aesthetic, Robbins has held a lifelong love for the offbeat and for the written word. As a child he won a radio in a raffle and sold it for books. Nothing the human race has ever created, he writes, is more cool than a book. Humorous anecdotes and high jinks fill these pages as Robbins waxes poetic about the circus life and shares his love for tomatoes, kimchi, numerous women, and his preference for Pepsi over Coke, but it's not until almost page 200 when his life is forever altered by exposure to LSD and the infinite rabbit holes it has led him to. Now in his eighties (hard to believe), and still a booster for the mind-altering properties of most drugs, Robbins continues to embody Zen coolness and bohemian charm. Famous for his clever turn of a phrase, Robbins, with such nuggets as Adrenaline shot through me like a crystal meth espresso through a break-dance and Shaking his hand was like being forced to grasp the flaccid penis of a hypothermic zombie, certainly won't disappoint. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Robbins will be enjoying a six-city author tour and a national print campaign as part of his publisher's promotional push.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)