“Boomer had asked her once, in a telephone call from Virginia, “Why does this stuff, these hand-painted hallucinations that don’t do nothin’ but confuse the puddin’ out of a perfectly reasonable wall, why does it mean so much to you?” It was a poor connection, but he could have sworn he heard her say, “In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn’t creak.”

American novelist

Tom Robbins was an American novelist. He is known for his playful, comic fiction, especially his “seriocomedies.” Among his best-known books is Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, published in 1976 and later adapted into a 1993 film by Gus Van Sant. His final work, Tibetan Peach Pie, appeared in 2014 and he described it as an “un-memoir.” From 1970, he lived in La Conner, Washington, where he wrote nine of his books.