The Tokyo-Montana Express (association copy)
London: Picador, 1980. First thus. Softcover. Association copy, signed on the title page: "This copy is for Russ ... Richard Brautigan, Spring, March 1983." The middle part of the inscription is difficult to decipher, but it's something like "always liked what you did down . . .." See photos to help decipher.
The recipient is painter Russell Chatham, who spent the majority of his career outside of Livingston, MT, and was a member of the literary "Montana Gang" that included (among a few others) Brautigan, Thomas McGuane, and his good friend Jim Harrison, who used Chatham's paintings on the covers of most of his books. Chatham was extraordinarily successful during the height of his career (his largest paintings sold for $1 million to celebrities), and his paintings remain iconic images of the Montana landscape and perhaps the Interior West at large. See this great and wandering tribute from Rick Bass in Angler's Journal. Chatham was also a talented writer, best known for his iconic work The Angler's Coast, and he was the publisher of Clark City Press, which published more than three dozen books including some of his own as well as books by Jim Harrison, Rick Bass, and others.
The Tokyo-Montana Express is a collection of short stories and sketches that draw on his trans-Pacific travels, "Brautigan in many moods on anything from mosquito bites to Groucho Marx." He lived between Tokyo, Montana, and San Francisco. Uncommon signed in this British paperback edition. A very good copy with with a couple faint, slantwise creases to rear wrap. A great association between two prominent members of the Montana Gang. Very good. Item #1515
Price: $1,500.00 save 5% $1,425.00