LEILA FADEL, HOST:
In novels like "Jitterbug Perfume," the writer Tom Robbins dazzled readers with colorful characters and effusive language. He died over the weekend at 92. Tom Vitale has this appreciation.
TOM VITALE: Tom Robbins lived in Washington state most of his life, but he was born in rural North Carolina and moved around the South. In 2014, Robbins told NPR that as a boy, he would tell stories aloud to himself outside with a stick in his hand.
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TOM ROBBINS: And I would beat the ground as I told the story. And we moved fairly frequently. We would leave houses behind where one section of the yard was completely bare from where I'd destroyed the grass. But I realized much later in life that what I was doing was drumming. I was building a rhythm.
VITALE: By the time Robbins started writing novels in his 30s, the stick was gone, but the rhythm was stronger than ever.
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ROBBINS: (Reading) Jelly is sitting in the outhouse. She's been sitting there longer than necessary. The door is wide open and lets in the sky, or rather a piece of the sky.
VITALE: In this excerpt from the audiobook of his novel "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues," we meet the boss of an all-lesbian ranch in deep contemplation.
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ROBBINS: (Reading) What looks to be a wisp of cloud is actually the moon - narrow and pale like a pairing snipped from a snowman's toenail.
VITALE: Robbins wrote in his memoir that he began taking LSD in 1964. And the eccentric characters and bizarre situations in his novels reflect a hallucinatory vision. In his first book, "Another Roadside Attraction," the mummified body of Jesus Christ turns up at a roadside hot dog stand. His novel "Still Life With Woodpecker" takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes.
CATHERINE HOYSER: People who believed that he was a drug-taking bon vivant that wasn't particularly serious in his work actually don't pay attention to the profound nature underneath that humor.
VITALE: Professor Catherine Hoyser wrote a study guide to the novels of Tom Robbins. She says underneath the fantasy and whimsy, Robbins was an advocate for feminism, social justice and the environment. She singles out his 1994 novel, "Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas," in which frogs are disappearing.
HOYSER: And he was writing about this well before people were even noticing about the decline of species on our planet from climate change.
VITALE: Amid the humor and wild imagination in his prose, Robbins embedded small essays on subjects ranging from the life of an amoeba to Eastern philosophy. What made it all work were his meticulously crafted sentences.
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ROBBINS: (Reading) Weather's hot, but there's a breeze today, and it feels sweet swimming up her bare thighs. There is sage smell and rose waft. There is fly buzz and polka yip. Way off, horse lips flutter.
VITALE: "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" and Robbins' other books have been translated into more than 20 languages. They sold millions of copies. Tom Robbins said that language was the most important thing. It was more important, he said, than the message.
For NPR News, I'm Tom Vitale in New York.
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FADEL: The audio clips you just heard are courtesy of publisher Phoenix Books.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAVAGES' "BRIGHT VIBE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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