Vonnegut Chronicles : Interviews and Essays

Since 1950, when his short stories first appeared, Kurt Vonnegut has published almost 50 short stories, 13 novels, two plays, and a teleplay. He has remained one of the shrewdest commentators―and often harshest critics―of American society, challenging the complacency of the Eisenhower years, watching the Kennedy's with admiration, and disliking Nixon. He has remained one of the most important chroniclers of American life, his message often foreboding though rarely gloomy. Yet he occupies an ambiguous place in American letters. The 14 essays in this collection seek to chronicle Vonnegut's career as it moves through changing times.

The volume opens with a chronology of Vonnegut's life and three interviews with him. The essays consider his career, combining interest and readability for the general reader with critical commentary for the more serious scholar. The essays consider Vonnegut's later work or are retrospectives reevaluating aspects of his career. Some discuss individual works, particularly later novels, but most consider the ways Vonnegut pursues a theme or technique, the ways his mind works both in the construction of the novels and in the ideas embodied in them. There is also an Appendix discussing Vonnegut's most recent creative enterprise, graphic art, with 12 illustrations of his most recent art work.

PETER J. REED, Professor of English and Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, wrote the first book-length treatment of Vonnegut in 1972, Writers for the 70s:Kurt Vonnegut. His biographical sketches of Vonnegut appear in such standard works as the Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography, the Dictionary of American Literary Biography, Magill's Survey of American Literature, and Postmodern Fiction:A Bio-Bibliographical Guide.

MARC LEEDS has directed computer-based writing programs at East Tennessee State University and Shawnee State University. He is now a freelance writer and author of The Vonnegut Encyclopedia: An Authorized Compendium (Greenwood, 1995).