Tom Robbins (1932-2025): An imaginative life
A creative soul of VCU is gone. Tom Robbins, icon, iconoclast, a man of imagination and a VCU alumnus, died yesterday. He was 92 but seemed forever young. People magazine had once described Robbins as “the perennial flower child and wild blooming Peter Pan of American letters,” who “dips history’s pigtails in weird ink and splatters his graffiti over the face of modern fiction.”
He graduated from Richmond Professional Institute (VCU’s precursor) in 1959. He edited the university newspaper Proscript in 1958-59 and later worked briefly as a copy editor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch before moving west to Seattle and environs. He wrote arts criticism for The Seattle Times, and he hosted an alternative radio show “Notes from the Underground.” His literary life included articles and essays for Esquire, Playboy, The New York Times and GQ.
From his west coast base, he lived large and wrote counterculture novels that became cult classics. He was best known for 1976’s “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” which was adapted for a 1993 film by Gus Van Sant, starring Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco and Keanu Reeves.
You’ll find all of Robbins’ novels at VCU Libraries. VCU Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives also houses his papers, including the manuscripts for all of Robbins’ novels and a few of his other works. It includes handwritten drafts, typed versions of drafts, and galley proofs. The collection also includes some fan letters, spiral notebooks with handwritten notes and phrases and more.
Robbins’ manuscript collection includes ephemera, some of which illustrates his distinctive, imaginative style. In a handwritten postscript to a broadcasting contract, he wrote: “I should warn you that you may have to press your bleep button a few times.” And there is a business card in the box that describes Robbins as “Part-time Buddha, Menace to Society, Admirer of Clouds.”
In reporting his death, the Associated Press described him as “the novelist and prankster-philosopher who charmed and addled millions of readers with screwball adventures.”
To explore Robbins’s life and work, visit the VCU Gallery: Tom Robbins: an Imaginative Life · VCU Libraries Gallery
Image credit: From the cover art for Tom Robbins’ autobiography, “Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life.”
Categories Alumni, Collections, Special Collections and Archives