The Hawkline Monster - Richard Brautigan
I'm unsure how to write about Brautigan, because his work is so uniquely him that it seems impossible to describe what's going on in his books without it all sounding a little silly.
The Hawkline Monster starts out as a western and turns into a gothic horror halfway through. I want to say that it subverts both genres, but it doesn't really do anything unique with the western structure - it simple uses it as a jumping-off point to get its characters into the big spooky house with the monster. And up until that point it's actually a very straightforward, grounded story, especially by Brautigan's standards.
It's once we reach the gothic horror part of the novel that things start to get weird and Brautigan starts to play with the expectations of the genre. It's surreal and bizarre and frequently funny, as well as being abrupt, jagged, and cold.
I haven't read Trout Fishing In America or In Watermelon Sugar in a very long time, so I'm not sure how this compares to them, but I knot that I liked it. It certainly feels a lot less weird than I remember either of those two books being, and I wonder if this would work as an introduction to Brautigan for people unfamiliar with his work - but then I also find myself wondering whether the weirdness would actually land for people who don't know what they're getting into?
I'm unsure, but I'm glad I finally got around to reading this.