About the Author

Kurt Vonnegutwas a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention inThe Sirens of Titanin 1959 and established him, in the words ofThe New York Times, as "a true artist" with the publication ofCat's Cradlein 1963. He was, as Graham Greene declared, "one of the best living American writers." Mr. Vonnegut passed away in April 2007.

Reviews

Praise for Timequake

“[A] quirky mix of fiction and biography...This is the indispensable Vonnegut.”—San Francisco Chronicle“Wry and trenchant...highly entertaining.”—The New York Times Book Review“His funniest book since Breakfast of Champions...There are nuggets of Vonnegutian wisdom throughout.”—Newsweek“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 irresistible reading that's loaded with more important truths than it lets on...Moralizing has never been funnier.”—Chicago Sun-Times“Part autobiography, part meditation, part satire...Vonnegut is at his best.”—Atlanta Journal & Constitution

Its publisher calls this Vonnegut's "first full-length work of fiction in seven years" (since the novel Hocus Pocus), which seems like a polite way to avoid claiming it as a novel. It's certainly not that, nor is it, strictly speaking, a collection of stories. It is, rather, a good-natured and delightful ramble around the problem of not being able to get a book to work. Using his science-fictional alter ego Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut talks about a recalcitrant book of Trout's whose premise would have been that "a sudden glitch in the space-time continuum'' occurs, creating a 10-year hitch in time in which everyone is forced to live that period of their lives over again, every word and action exactly repeated, from 1991 until 2001, at which point their lives move forward once more. It is a nice conceit, and Vonnegut and Trout have some fun with it, all interwoven with anecdotes about the Vonnegut family, how it feels to be an aging author and suchlike. There are plenty of Vonnegut gems for the taking (he and William Styron agree at one point that only 17% of people in the world have lives worth living), but the effect of the book is more like a relaxed, jokey conversation than anything else. Call it a patchwork of brief, semi-fictional essays; no matter, Vonnegut is always good company. (Sept.)

Praise for Timequake

"[A] quirky mix of fiction and biography...This is the indispensable Vonnegut."-San Francisco Chronicle"Wry and trenchant...highly entertaining."-The New York Times Book Review"His funniest book since Breakfast of Champions...There are nuggets of Vonnegutian wisdom throughout."-Newsweek"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 irresistible reading that's loaded with more important truths than it lets on...Moralizing has never been funnier."-Chicago Sun-Times"Part autobiography, part meditation, part satire...Vonnegut is at his best."-Atlanta Journal & Constitution