Edited sentence: After his death, we must entertain the notion that inBOIL, whose life of alcoholic dissipation which ended in suicide, was also, in par†, based on Brautigan's own problems with drinking and depression.At the time the novel was published the reader could be forgiven for assuming the narrator's voice and Brautigan's were the same.However, after Brautigan's death by suicide, it is not possible to read the novel in the same light of innocence.In this light, the narrator's intimacy with both Pauline (representing innocence, life, growth) and Margaret (who increasingly embraces the dark side represented by the Forgotten Works) illuminates the author's struggle.That the narrator chooses Pauline over Margaret (who, like inBOIL and his gang, commits suicide) indicates a desire to choose life.Though depression and disease eventually won out over Brautigan.Thus, what seemed at first blush a simple parable of innocence and lost innocence ultimately reveals a deeply moving internal struggle by a creative young author who, sadly, left this world too soon