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Kurt Vonnegut and the Many Lives of Slaughterhouse-Five

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• Publisher: Abrams Press
• Year: 2021
• Edition: 0
• eBook ISBN:
  9781683359241
• Topic: Literature
• Index: Literature

The story of Kurt Vonnegut and Slaughterhouse-Five, an enduring masterpiece on trauma and memory Kurt Vonnegut was twenty years old when he enlisted in the United States Army. Less than two years later, he was captured by the Germans in the single deadliest US engagement of the war, the Battle of the Bulge. He was taken to a POW camp, then transferred to a work camp near Dresden, and held in a slaughterhouse called Schlachthof Funf where he survived the horrific firebombing that killed thousands and destroyed the city. To the millions of fans of Vonnegut's great novel Slaughterhouse-Five, these details are familiar. They're told by the book's author/narrator, and experienced by his enduring character Billy Pilgrim, a war veteran who "e;has come unstuck in time."e; Writing during the tumultuous days of the Vietnam conflict, with the novel, Vonnegut had, after more than two decades of struggle, taken trauma and created a work of art, one that still resonates today. In The Writer's Crusade, author Tom Roston examines the connection between Vonnegut's life and Slaughterhouse-Five. Did Vonnegut suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Did Billy Pilgrim? Roston probes Vonnegut's work, his personal history, and discarded drafts of the novel, as well as original interviews with the writer's family, friends, scholars, psychologists, and other novelists including Karl Marlantes, Kevin Powers, and Tim O'Brien. The Writer's Crusade is a literary and biographical journey that asks fundamental questions about trauma, creativity, and the power of storytelling.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Chapter One. Kurt Vonnegut, Nazi Slayer!
• Chapter Two. Slaughterhouse-Five and the PTSD Prism
• Chapter Three. The Road to Dresden
• Chapter Four. Onwards and Upwards
• Chapter Five. Writing Slaughterhouse-Five, or, This Lousy Little Book
• Chapter Six. A Reading of Slaughterhouse-Five, or, Stopping a Glacier
• Chapter Seven. What Really Happened to Vonnegut in World War II, or, the War Parts, Anyway
• Chapter Eight. A History of War Trauma
• Chapter Nine. A PTSD Primer and an Infinite Jester
• Chapter Ten. What’s Wrong with Billy?
• Chapter Eleven. Diagnosing Mr. Vonnegut
• Chapter Twelve. Kurt, After the Crusade
• Chapter Thirteen. Slaughterhouse-Five’s Place in History (Despite That Whole Timelessness Thing)
• Chapter Fourteen. One Last Joke
• Author Note
• A Non-Tralfamadorian Timeline of Vonnegut’s Life
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index