Tom Robbins

Tom Robbins
Tom Robbins at a reading of Wild Ducks Flying Backward in San Francisco on September 24, 2005
Born	Thomas Eugene Robbins (1932-07-22) July 22, 1932 (age 84) Blowing Rock, North Carolina, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer, essayist
Nationality	American
Genre	Fictional prose, Postmodernism
Spouse	Alexa D'Avalon (1987–present)
Children	3

Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins (born July 22, 1932) is an American novelist. His best-selling novels are "seriocomedies" (also known as "comedy-drama"), often wildly poetic stories with a strong social and philosophical undercurrent, an irreverent bent, and scenes extrapolated from carefully researched bizarre facts. His novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was made into a movie in 1993 by Gus Van Sant and stars Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco, and Keanu Reeves.

Robbins was born on July 22, 1932 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina to George Thomas Robbins and Katherine Belle Robinson. Both of his grandfathers were Baptist preachers. The Robbins family resided in Blowing Rock before moving to Richmond, Virginia when the author was still a young boy. As an adult, Robbins has described his young self as a "hillbilly".

Robbins attended Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia, where he won the Senior Essay Medal. The following year he enrolled at Washington and Lee University to major in journalism, leaving at the end of his sophomore year after being disciplined by his fraternity for bad behavior and failing to earn a letter in basketball.

In 1953, he enlisted in the Air Force after receiving his draft notice, spending a year as a meteorologist in Korea, followed by two years in the Special Weather Intelligence unit of the Strategic Air Command in Nebraska. He was discharged in 1957 and returned to Richmond, Virginia, where his poetry readings at the Rhinoceros Coffee House led to a reputation among the local bohemian scene.