World's Greatest Classic Books Feature:

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

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Kurt Vonnegut

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It was at Shortridge High School in Indianapolis that Vonnegut gained his first writing experience. During his last two years there he wrote for and was one of the editors of the Shortridge Daily Echo, which was the first high school daily newspaper in the country. At this young age Vonnegut learned to write for a wide audience that would give him immediate feedback, rather than just writing for an audience of one in the form of a teacher.

After graduating from Shortridge in 1940, Vonnegut headed for Cornell University. His father wanted him to study something that was solid and dependable, like science, so Vonnegut began his college career as a chemistry and biology major, following in the footsteps of his older brother, Bernard, who was to eventually be the discoverer of cloud seeding to induce precipitation. While Vonnegut struggled in his chemistry and biology studies, he excelled as a columnist and managing editor for the Cornell Daily Sun. But by 1943 Vonnegut was on the verge of being asked to leave Cornell due to his lackluster academic performance. He beat Cornell to the punch by enlisting in the army.

By this point Vonnegut's parents had given up on life, being unable to adjust to or accept the fact that they were no longer wealthy, world travellers. On May 14, 1944, his mother committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. His father was to remain a fairly isolated man the rest of his days, in full retreat from life, content to be in his own little world until his death on October 1, 1957.

On December 14, 1944, Vonnegut became a German prisoner of war after being captured in the Battle of the Bulge. He was sent to Dresden, an open city that produced no war machinery; thus it was off-limits to allied bombing. He and his fellow POW's were to work in a vitamin-syrup factory. On February 13, 1945, however, allied forces strafed Dresden, killing 135,000 unprotected civilians. Vonnegut and the other POW's survived the bombing as they waited it out deep in the cellar of a slaughterhouse, where they were quartered.

Vonnegut was repatriated on May 22, 1945, and on September first of that year he married Jane Marie Cox, a friend since kindergarten, for he thought, "'Who but a wife would sleep with me?'".

Vonnegut spent the next two years in Chicago, attending the University of Chicago as a graduate anthropology student, and working for the Chicago City News Bureau as a police reporter. When his master's thesis was rejected, he moved to Schenectedy, New York, to work as a publicist for General Electric. It was here that his fiction career began. On February 11, 1950, Collier's published Vonnegut's first short story, "Report on the Barnhouse Effect." By the next year he was making enough money writing to quit his job at GE and move his family to West Barnstable, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.

In 1952 his first novel, Player Piano, was published. By the time his next novel, The Sirens of Titan, was published in 1959, he had had dozens of short stories published, worked as an English teacher at a school for emotionally disturbed students, run a Saab dealership, seen his father die, witnessed the death of his 41-year old sister, Alice, due to cancer, which occurred less than forty-eight hours after her husband had died in a train accident, and had adopted three of Alice's four children to add to his own stable of three kids.

The sixties were highlighted by the publication of four more novels, a collection of short stories, and a two-year residency at the famous University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. The decade culminated with the publication of Vonnegut's sixth, and still best, novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, in 1968.

The early seventies were an interesting and hectic time for Vonnegut. Much in demand as the voice of the college-aged generation, he spent time teaching creative writing at Harvard, wrote a mildly successful off-Broadway play, got divorced, and saw his son Mark suffer a schizophrenic breakdown. By the time Breakfast of Champions was published in 1973, Vonnegut's life was starting to slow down just a bit as he dropped from his pinnacle in the national spotlight. The critically lambasted Slapstick appeared in 1976, which was followed by 1979's Jailbird.

He was 75 when Timequake was published in 1997 and he said it would be his last novel. In May 2000, he was named to a teaching position at Smith College in Northampton, MA. Vonnegut and his wife Jane Cox separated in 1970 and were divorced in 1979. In November 1979, Vonnegut married photographer Jill Krementz. In 1991, Vonnegut and Krementz filed for divorce but the petition was later withdrawn. He has seven children, three from his first marriage and three of his sister's children whom he adopted when his brother-in-law died in a train wreck and his sister died of cancer a few days later. He and Krementz adopted a daughter.

On July 9, 1999, he was honored by the Indiana Historical Society as an Indiana Living Legend. Vonnegut was critically injured in a fire at his New York City brownstone Jan. 30, 2000.

Slaughterhouse Five

Cat's Cradle
Cat's Cradle, one of Vonnegut's most entertaining novels, is filled with scientists and G-men and even ordinary folks caught up in the game. These assorted characters chase each other around in search of the world's most important and dangerous substance, a new form of ice that freezes at room temperature.

Breakfast of Champions
Breakfast Of Champions is vintage Vonnegut. One of his favorite characters, aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth.

The Vonnegut Chronicles: Interviews and Essays
Following three interviews with Vonnegut, the 14 essays in this collection seek to chronicle his career as it moves through changing times. The essays either focus on Vonnegut's later work or are retrospectives reevaluating aspects of his literary career. Some are on individual works, particularly later novels, but most consider the ways Vonnegut pursues a theme or technique.

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
As a "reporter on the afterlife," Vonnegut bravely allows himself to be strapped to a gurney by his friend Jack Kevorkian and dispatched round-trip to the Pearly Gates.

Player Piano (1952)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Vonnegut's first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a super computer and run completely by machines. Paul's rebellion is vintage Vonnegut - wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifying close to reality.

"His black logic . . . gives us something to laugh about and much to fear." - The New York Times Book Review

The Sirens Of Titan (1959)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

The Sirens Of Titan is an outrageous romp through space, time, and morality. The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course there's a catch to the invitation...and a prophetic vision about the purpose of human life that only Vonnegut has the courage to tell.

"Vonnegut is George Orwell, Dr. Caligari and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer . . . a zany but moral mad scientist." - Time

Mother Night (1961)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.

"A Great artist." - The Cincinnati Enquirer

Cat's Cradle (1963)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Cat's Cradle is Vonnegut's satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet's ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagnoist; a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer; and a visino of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. A book that left an indelible mark on an entire generation of readers, Cat's Cradle is one of this century's most important works...and Vonnegut at his very best.

"A great artist." - The Cincinnati Enquirer

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is a comic masterpiece. Eliot Rosewater, drunk, volunteer fireman, and President of the fabuloulsy rich Rosewater Foundation, is about to attempt a noble experiment with human nature...with a little help from writer Kilgore Trout. The result is Vonnegut's funniest satire, an etched-in-acid portrayal of the greed, hypocrisy, and follies of the flesh we are all heir to.

"A brilliantly funny satire on almost everything." - Conrad Aiken

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.

"Splendid art . . . a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears." - Wilfrid Sheed, Life

"Very tough and very funny . . . sad and delightful . . . very Vonnegut." - The New York Times

Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Breakfast of Champions is vintage Vonnegut. One of his favorite characters, aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. The result is murderously funny satire as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.

"Free-wheeling, wild and great . . . uniquely Vonnegut." - Publishers Weekly

Slapstick (1976)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Slapstick presents an apocalyptic vision seen through the eyes of the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the United States), a wickedly irreverent look at the all-too-possible results of today's follies. But even the end of life-as-we-know-it is transformed by Vonnegut's pen into hilarious farce - a final slapstick that may be the Almighty's joke on us all.

"Vonnegut's ongoing puppet show . . . the fabulous is reborn." - John Updike

"Imaginative and hilarious . . . a brilliant vision of our wrecked, wacked-out future." - Hartford Courant

Jailbird (1979)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Jailbird takes us into a fractured and comic, pure Vonnegut world of high crimes and misdemeanors in government . . . and in the heart. This wry tale follows bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentiary as Watergate's least known co-conspirator. But the humor turns dark when Vonnegut shines his spotlight on the cold hearts and calculated greed of the mighty, giving a razor-sharp edge to an unforgettable portrait of power and politics in our times.

"A gem . . . a mature, imaginative novel - possibility the best he has written . . . Jailbird is a guided tour de force of America. Take it!" - Playboy

Deadeye Dick (1982)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Deadeye Dick is Vonnegut's funny, chillingly satirical look at the death of innocence. Amid a true Vonnegutian host of horrors - a double murder, a fatal dose of radioactivity, a decapitation, an annihilation of a city by a neutron bomb - Rudy Waltz, a.k.a. Deadeye Dick, takes us along on a zany search for absolution and happiness. Here is a tale of crime and punishment that makes us rethink what we believe... and who we say we are.

"Vonnegut is George Orwell, Dr. Caligari and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer . . . a zany but moral mad scientist." - Time

Galapagos (1985)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Galapagos takes the reader back one million years, to A.D. 1986. A simple vacation cruise suddenly becomes an evolutionary journey. Thanks to an apocalypse, a small group of survivers stranded on the Galapagos Islands are about to become the progenitors of a brave new, and totally different human race. Here, America's master satirist looks at our world and shows us all that is sadly, madly awry - and all that is worth saving.

"Vonnegut is a postmodern Mark Twain. . . . Galapagos is a madcap genealogical adventure." - The New York Times Book Review

Bluebeard (1987)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Bluebeard ranks with Vonnegut's most imaginative works. Broad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at seventy-one, wants to be left alone at his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn. But then a voluptuous young widow badgers him into telling his life story - and Vonnegut tells us the plain, heart-hammering truth about man's careless fancy to create or destroy what he loves.

"Vonnegut is George Orwell, Dr. Caligari and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer . . . a zany but moral mad scientist." - Time

Hocus Pocus (1990)

"Comic, absorbing . . . one of the finest achievements of his career." - Philadelphia Inquirer

"Great news . . . Hocus Pocus is a really funny book!" - Milwaukee Journal

"Sharp-toothed satire . . . absurd humor." - San Francisco Chronicle

"A king-sized relief valve of comedy." - Playboy

"Irresistible . . . off-the-wall brilliance." - Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Hocus Pocus is a scream." - San Diego Tribune

Timequake (1997)

"His funniest book since Breakfast of Champions . . . There are nuggets of Vonnegutian wisdom throughout." - Newsweek

"Hilarious . . .unsettling . . . exhilarating . . . This work has been a blessing." - Valerie Sayers, The New York Times Book Review

"Timequake is a novel by, and starring, Kurt Vonnegut... What Vonnegut does, which no one can do better, is give a big postmodern shrug . . . You've got to love him." - The Washington Post Book World

"Humorous, sardonic . . . Timequake makes for irresistable reading that's loaded with more important truths than it lets on . . . Moralizing has never been funnier." - Chicago Sun-Times

"Vonnegut is at his best." - Atlanta Journal & Constitution

Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut's shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, what these superb stories share is Vonnegut's audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision.

"He strips the flesh from bone and makes you laugh while he does it. . . . there are twenty-five stories here, and each hits a nerve ending." - The Charlotte Observer

Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (1974)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions) is a rare opportunity to experience Kurt Vonnegut speaking in his own vocie about his own life, his views of the world, his writing, and the writing of others. An indignant, outrageous, always witty, and deeply felt collection of reviews, essays, and speeches, this work is a window not only into Vonnegut's mind . . . but also into his heart.

"A great cosmic comedian and rattler of human skeletons, an idealist disguised as a pessimist . . . has written a book filled with madness and truth and absurdity and self-revelation." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Palm Sunday (1981)

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."

Palm Sunday is a self-portrait by an American genius. Vonnegut writes with beguiling wit and poignant wisdom about his favorite comedians, country music, a dead friend, a dead marriage, and various cockamamy aspects of his all-too-human journey through life. It is a work that resonates with Vonnegut's singular voice: the magic sound of a born storyteller mesmerizing us with truth.

"Vonnegut at the top of his form, and it is wonderful." - Newsday

Fates Worse than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s (1991)

"An often insightful and always funny self-portrait that may be as much of an autobiography as we will ever get from Vonnegut." - Playboy

"The kindred spirit of Mark Twain harpoons humanity with howling assessments . . . Vonnegut's genius for satire continues to shine." - Nashville Banner

"Mordantly funny . . . highly entertaining." - New York Newsday

"Here we go again..." - Kurt Vonnegut

Like Shaking Hands With God: A Conversation About Writing (1999)

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (2001)

In what began as a series of quirkily characteristic ninety-second interludes for New York's public radio station, Kurt Vonnegut asks, on behalf of us all, the Big Questions. Could death be a quality? A place? Not an ending but an occurrence that changes those to whom it happens?

As a "reporter on the afterlife," Vonnegut bravely allows himself to be strapped to a gurney by his friend Jack Kevorkian and dispatched round-trip to the Pearly Gates. Or at least that's what he claims in the introduction to these thirty-odd comic and irreverent "interviews" with the likes of William Shakespeare, Adolf Hitler, and Clarence Darrow, bringing readers to an entirely new place - a place to which only Vonnegut could bring us.

"Vonnegut devotees will love this little book, and I'm sure anyone else with a sense of humor and the desire to fulfill his or her 'right to know' will enjoy it as well.... A tidy smorgasbord of ficto-journalism and journo-fictionalism and various other forms of writing that deftly defy classification."
-The Providence Sunday Journal

"Vonnegut is our strongest writer... the most stubbornly imaginative."
-John Irving

KURT VONNEGUT is the legendary author of dozens of books, including Timequake, Breakfast of Champions, Slaughterhouse-Five, and, with Lee Stringer, Like Shaking Hands with God, which is available from Washington Square Press.