Kurt Vonnegut's America

"In this wonderfully comprehensive book Jerome Klinkowitz offers a multifaceted view of a writer whose fifty-year career spanned the second half of the twentieth century. Descendant of Mark Twain and Will Rogers in his use of the American vernacular, anticipator of postmodern theorists in his interrogation of previously unchallenged assumptions, anthropologist in his lifelong concern with family structures and folk societies, and journalist in his address to the 'person from Indianapolis' that he always considered himself to be, the Kurt Vonnegut that emerges from these pages complicates all previous renderings of the author. That the writer who offers this portrait of the artist as a complex man is both a friend of thirty-six years as well as a critic for over thirty-six years only adds to the immense pleasures of this depiction."—Stacey Olster, professor of English, Stony Brook University

"This is a book that only Jerome Klinkowitz could have written. Long the foremost commentator on Vonnegut's writing—and the author's friend for thirty-six years—Klinkowitz is also an acknowledged authority on the literary and cultural aspects of contemporary America. These, he shows in depth, provide the context and catalyst for Vonnegut's achievement. Thus his book explains Vonnegut, author and body of work, better than any other single study. At times it even reads like Vonnegut. Blending personal recollection with biographical and critical commentary, Klinkowitz offers immediacy and unique insights in a book that feels like a farewell to an old friend. Kurt Vonnegut's America is a must for any Vonnegut enthusiast."—Peter J. Reed, professor of English emeritus, University of Minnesota

"In his tenth book on Kurt Vonnegut, Klinkowitz reads the writer and American culture as evolving in vivid conversation with one another. Klinkowitz writes both as Vonnegut's close friend and as founder of Vonnegut studies. The resulting work reverberates with the inviting elegance, unique authority, and impeccable rigor that only Klinkowitz could provide and which his subject deserves."—Christian Moraru, author of Memorious Discourse: Reprise and Representation in Postmodernism

"In his tenth book on Kurt Vonnegut, Jerome Klinkowitz reads the writer and American culture as evolving in vivid conversation with one another. The critic views Vonnegut's work as a cultural seismograph charting past transformations in American history and forewarning developments for which few were prepared. Klinkowitz writes both as Vonnegut's close friend and as founder of Vonnegut studies. The resulting work reverberates with the inviting elegance, unique authority, and impeccable rigor that only Klinkowitz could provide and which his subject deserves. Thus, this volume highlights the relationships between an iconic writer and his audience as well as between the writer and his most accomplished critic."—Christian Moraru, author of Memorious Discourse: Reprise and Representation in Postmodernism

"Blending personal recollection with biographical and critical commentary, Klinkowitz offers immediacy and unique insights in a book that feels like a farewell to an old friend. Kurt Vonnegut's America is a must for any Vonnegut enthusiast."—Peter J. Reed, professor emeritus of English, University of Minnesota

"No matter how familiar you are with the great author's canon, Kurt Vonnegut's America will have you pulling his books off the shelf again, eager to reread them, armed with new insights that could only be provided by the country's leading Vonnegut scholar. Here, Klinkowitz provides a critical context for Vonnegut's output that is informed not only by his biography, but his reaction to, and shaping of, an ever-evolving American culture. It's no wonder that Vonnegut himself was honored by Klinkowitz' academic interest, as well as his friendship. If the late author could read these pages, he'd surely say, 'If that isn't nice, what is?'"—Robert Weide, director of Kurt Vonnegut: American Made and screenwriter of Mother Night