Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life

Tom Robbins

May 2014 · Harper Collins

About this ebook

Internationally bestselling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins’ legendary memoir—wild tales of his life and times, both at home and around the globe.

Tom Robbins’ warm, wise, and wonderfully weird novels—including Still Life with Woodpecker, Jitterbug Perfume, and Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates—provide an entryway into the frontier of his singular imagination. Madcap but sincere, pulsating with strong social and philosophical undercurrents, his irreverent classics have introduced countless readers to natural born hitchhiking cowgirls, born-again monkeys, a philosophizing can of beans, exiled royalty, and problematic redheads.

In Tibetan Peach Pie, Robbins turns that unparalleled literary sensibility inward, stitching together stories of his unconventional life, from his Appalachian childhood to his globetrotting adventures —told in his unique voice that combines the sweet and sly, the spiritual and earthy. The grandchild of Baptist preachers, Robbins would become over the course of half a century a poet-interruptus, an air force weatherman, a radio DJ, an art-critic-turned-psychedelic-journeyman, a world-famous novelist, and a counter-culture hero, leading a life as unlikely, magical, and bizarre as those of his quixotic characters.

Robbins offers intimate snapshots of Appalachia during the Great Depression, the West Coast during the Sixties psychedelic revolution, international roving before homeland security monitored our travels, and New York publishing when it still relied on trees. Written with the big-hearted comedy and mesmerizing linguistic invention for which he is known, Tibetan Peach Pie is an invitation into the private world of a literary legend.

“A rollicking reminiscence of his Appalachian upbringing, his spiral through the psychedelic ’60s, and his unconventional path to literary stardom.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

Ratings and reviews

Tom Robbins is an amazing author, with some of the finest wordplay and knack for absurd realism alive today. Unfortunately, this is not a meticulously-crafted work of fiction, but the anecdotal life and times of a nice old horndog who lived a reasonably interesting life. Nuggets of joyful weirdness are lost in a slog through tragically tepid adventure, and there's no central driving narrative to keep the reader enthralled. TBP isn't bad, per se, just a touch dull. For a far better time, go read his books.

A luscious slice of the life of a rare wordsmith. Tom Robbins can still make me giggle, sigh wistfully, and shed a single tear in the course of a chapter. I've missed him.

A delicious piece of literature.

About the author

Tom Robbins is a writer, novelist, editor, and journalist. He was born in Blowing Rock, North Carolina on July 22, 1936. Robbins studied journalism at Washington and Lee for two years and later graduated from the Richmond Professional Institute in 1961. He attended the Graduate School of Far Eastern Studies at the University of Washington. From 1957 to 1960, Robbins served in the U.S. Air Force stationed in Korea as a meteorologist. During his years in the service he took courses in Japanese culture and aesthetics in Tokyo. After the military, Robbins took a job as a copy editor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Robbins later worked as feature editor and art critic at the Seattle Times and part time at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Robbins published the novel, Another Roadside Attraction in 1971. Other books include Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Still Life With Woodpecker. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was made into a 1996 film directed by Gus Van Sant. Robbins has also acted in such films as Made in Heaven and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. A documentary entitled, Tom Robbins: A Writer in the Rain was made in 1997. In 2014, his title Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life, made The New York Times Best Seller List.