Things you might not have known about Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
His mother committed suicide on Mother’s Day.
He was trapped in a meat locker labelled "Slaughterhouse Five" during WWII, and was one of only seven Americans to be captured by the Germans and survive.
He once ate dinner with my husband (who was a teenager then). This is because my husband’s grandfather is freakishly brilliant and knows all sorts of weird folks.
He studied chemistry, and then later anthropology, in college. His love of writing was rewarded by first being kicked out of a literary school for his stories being sub-par, and then having his first university thesis rejected for bad writing. He was on the verge of giving up when Cat’s Cradle suddenly became a best-seller.
He considered Mark Twain a Saint. (Can’t say I disagree.)
Every time I think about giving up writing, Kilgore Trout appears in a dream and cusses me out.
Kurt could draw quite well, and once did an album cover for Phish.
He was a secular humanist and lifetime member of the ACLU.
Of the troops in Iraq, he said that their morale was already "shot to pieces", and that they were "being treated, as I never was, like a toy a rich kid got for Christmas…" (This coming from someone with a Purple Heart medal.)
An asteriod, 25399 Vonnegut, is named after him.
Kilgore Trout dies, in the novel TimeQuake, at the age of 84 … which is how old Vonnegut himself was when he died yesterday.
Enjoy your rest, sir.
(Now would be a good time to go buy some of the master’s works
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