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The Making of Slaughterhouse-Five
by Susan Farrell
Banned, burned, and censored, Kurt Vonnegut's 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five is widely regarded as one of the greatest (and most controversial) novels of the twentieth century. Fusing vivid biography with popular history and close textual analysis, Vonnegut's War tells the fascinating story of the making of a modern classic and the writer that created it.
New archival discoveries and recently released oral histories give us the fullest account yet published of Vonnegut's real-life prisoner-of-war experiences at Stalag IV-B and Dresden, which heavily influenced Slaughterhouse-Five. A recently discovered trove of letters introduces us to his first wife, Jane Cox Vonnegut, and her influence on his writing. Along the way, we also encounter UFOs and aliens, grapple with the shadow cast by the Vietnam war, and unearth the stranger-than-fiction tale of David Irving's The Destruction of Dresden, the historical reference behind Vonnegut's writing about the Dresden firebombing.
This book sheds light on one of America's most beloved writers and explores how cultural forces helped to shape a modern masterpiece of storytelling.
"Farrell (Imagining Home), a literature professor at the College of Charleston, offers an arresting account of the creation and impact of Kurt Vonnegut's 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five...This is a tour de force of literary detective work." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Farrell writes the defining historiography of SL5, answering the question,"How the hell did Vonnegut do that?" by sequencing its well archived drafts before contextualizing his narrative choices. And that's just the half of it. Farrell addresses SL5's principle defining discussions including its metafictional elements, the questioned morality of Dresden's bombing, its adoption as a valued tome among Vietnam protestors, Vonnegut's science fiction albatross, and the novel's importance in court history as a frequent target for censorship." ―Marc Leeds, author of The Vonnegut Encyclopedia,
"This book is superb. It's a unique, fresh, deep dive into how Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut's seminal work, came about. It's also a damn good read: Concise, substantial, entertaining, surprising." ―Suzanne McConnell, author of 'Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style' by Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell
This information about Vonnegut’s War was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Susan Farrell is a Professor of American Literature at the College of Charleston, USA. Susan has published two previous books on Vonnegut, founded the International Kurt Vonnegut Society in 2008 and has served as an officer in the organization ever since.
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