Another Slice

Being a big Kurt Vonnegut appreciator (as opposed to just “fan”), I added a note in my “Suggested Reading” category, “Xtra Credit: Books You Might Enjoy (besides mine)”…

… about a new book of previously unpublished stories by Vonnegut.  (Presumably from the 1950′s and 60′s, though the artwork copyrights are all from the 1990′s and 2000′s.)

Now that I’ve read through them all, I have to admit that some of these stories (like much of Vonnegut’s later-years work) aren’t much fun.  I go so far as to recommend not reading the final story, “The Good Explainer.”

It almost seems like the stories in this volume become increasingly dark and un-fun as you read along.

But the first few are GREAT.  Vintage Vonnegut.  Hard to imagine why he didn’t like them enough to publish, when they were written.

One personal note:  When I was in college, I knew a girl who worked at the Sears store in Falmouth.  On Cape Cod.  And she explained to me once that Kurt Vonnegut used to buy all of his clothes there.  (From her personally, I think she meant to imply.)

I soon moved out here to Aspen, and we didn’t have a Sears any closer than Grand Junction, but we did have a JC Penney in Glenwood (40 miles away), so I decided that if the clothes at Sears were good enough for Kurt, the clothes at JC Penney should be good enough for me.

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