Kurt Vonnegut

"Slaughterhouse-Five" Author Dead at Age 84

Kurt Vonnegut, the author that defined satirical cynicism for the "Baby Boom" generation, died yesterday (April 11, 2007) as a result of complications of injuries suffered in a fall earlier this year. Vonnegut, who often quipped that he had defied chance in that he had lived so long while remaining a life-long smoker, was 84.

He was born on November 11, 1922 into what he once described as a family of "German-American religious skeptic Freethinkers" and had studied chemistry at Cornell University before joining the Army. Taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge, he was being held as a POW in Dresden on the night American and British bombers intentionally created a firestorm that killed an estimated 135,000 people. Vonnegut and a few other prisoners managed to survive the night by taking refuge in an underground meat locker that was identified by a sign over its door as "Slaughterhouse-Five."

Writing in his 1991 freestyle, rambling autobiography Fates Worse than Death he stated "... the firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am who I am ..."

In addition to dozens of essays, short stories, and an active career on the lecture circuit Vonnegut wrote 19 novels during his career, beginning with Player Piano in 1952 and including such "trademark" works such as The Sirens of Titan (1959) and Breakfast of Champions (1973).

Commenting in an earlier interview, writer Gore Vidal noted that he, Vonnegut, and Norman Mailer were the last writers that came of age during World War II.

"He was sort of like nobody else ... He was imaginative. Our generation didn't go in for imagination very much. Those of us who came out of the war ... made sort of the 'official' American prose and it was often a bit on the dull side. Kurt ... was never dull."

Like many of his contemporaries, he battled depression in the post-war years and attempted suicide with pills and alcohol in 1984. He later would joke about how he had had botched the job.