Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| Another Roadside Attraction | 1971 |
| Even Cowgirls Get the Blues | 1976 |
| Still Life with Woodpecker | 1980 |
| Jitterbug Perfume | 1984 |
| Skinny Legs and All | 1990 |
| Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas | 1994 |
| Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates | 2000 |
| Villa Incognito | 2003 |
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
| B Is for Beer | 2009 |
Publication Order of Collections
| Wild Ducks Flying Backward | 2005 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Guy Anderson | 1965 |
| Tibetan Peach Pie | 2014 |
About Tom Robbins
Tom Robbins (1932-2025) was an American novelist known for seriocomic novels such as “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”, “Still Life with Woodpecker” and “Jitterbug Perfume”. He published eight novels between 1971 and 2003 and lived in La Conner, Washington, from 1970 until his death.
Thomas Eugene Robbins was born in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, on 22 July 1932, and his family moved to Warsaw, Virginia, when he was a boy. Both of his grandfathers were Southern Baptist preachers. He studied journalism at Washington and Lee University but left at the end of his second year, enlisted in the US Air Force in 1953 and served as a meteorologist in Korea. After his discharge in 1957 he enrolled at Richmond Professional Institute, graduated in 1959 and joined the Richmond Times-Dispatch as a copy editor.
In 1962 Robbins moved to Seattle, where he worked as an art critic for the Seattle Times and hosted a weekly radio show, “Notes from the Underground”, on KRAB-FM. In 1966 an editor at Doubleday approached him about a book on Northwest art; Robbins pitched a novel instead. The result, written in South Bend, Washington, was “Another Roadside Attraction” (1971), about a couple who turn an abandoned restaurant in Skagit County into a hot dog stand and roadside zoo.
“Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” (1976) follows Sissy Hankshaw, a woman born with enormous thumbs who becomes a hitchhiker. Gus Van Sant filmed it in 1993 with Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco and Keanu Reeves, and Robbins narrated the film himself. “Still Life with Woodpecker” (1980) concerns the love affair between an environmentalist princess and an outlaw, and “Jitterbug Perfume” (1984), which links perfumers in Seattle, Paris and New Orleans to a pair of lovers seeking immortality, reached the New York Times best seller list in 1985.
His last novel was “Villa Incognito” (2003). It was followed by “Wild Ducks Flying Backward” (2005), a collection of essays, reviews and short stories, by the novella “B Is for Beer” (2009) and by “Tibetan Peach Pie” (2014), an account of his own life and his final book. Robbins received the Bumbershoot Golden Umbrella Award for lifetime achievement in 1997 and the Library of Virginia’s Literary Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. He died in La Conner on 9 February 2025, aged 92.