Brautigans' writing is beautiful for both its extremely simplicity of language  and its very loopy surrealism. Because the language is so simple, the reader is moved all the more when Brautigan tackles, as he always does, the really big pains of life -- disappointment, loss, exhaustion, disillusionment, fear. Brautigan was especially good at wrtiting about one of the taboo subjects in American literature: the passive male. Especially revealing on this topic was his brilliant novel The Abortion, in which the full-grown, male protagonist has no job and must be told how to use a telephone by his girlfriend. There is still much debate about the circumstances of Brautigan's suicide some years ago. To date, the most authoritative discussion of the matter is found in the biography of Brautigan written by his daughter.