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Biography
of Kurt Vonnegut
Written by Glenn Berggoetz
(Originally a part of his essay AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE PERSONAL NOVELS OF KURT VONNEGUT: 1968-1979)
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., was born on the eleventh day of November,
1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana. His birth date, which fell on
Armistice Day, would prove to be an omen for his pacifist views.
He was the grandson of the first licensed architect in Indiana,
and the son of a wealthy architect. The Great Depression,
however, left Vonnegut's father out of work, and the wealth of
the family soon diminished.
It was at Shortridge High School in Indianapolis that
Vonnegut gained his first writing experience. During his last two
years there he wrote for and was one of the editors of the
Shortridge Daily Echo, which was the first high school daily
newspaper in the country. At this young age Vonnegut learned to
write for a wide audience that would give him immediate feedback,
rather than just writing for an audience of one in the form of
a teacher.
After graduating from Shortridge in 1940, Vonnegut headed for
Cornell University. His father wanted him to study something that
was solid and dependable, like science, so Vonnegut began his
college career as a chemistry and biology major, following in the
footsteps of his older brother, Bernard, who was to eventually be
the discoverer of cloud seeding to induce precipitation. While
Vonnegut struggled in his chemistry and biology studies, he
excelled as a columnist and managing editor for the Cornell Daily
Sun. But by 1943 Vonnegut was on the verge of being asked to
leave Cornell due to his lackluster academic performance. He beat
Cornell to the punch by enlisting in the army.
By this point Vonnegut's parents had given up on life, being
unable to adjust to or accept the fact that they were no longer
wealthy, world travellers. On May 14, 1944, his mother committed
suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. His father was to remain
a fairly isolated man the rest of his days, in full retreat from
life, content to be in his own little world until his death on
October 1, 1957 (Jailbird 12-13; hereinafter identified as "J").
On December 14, 1944, Vonnegut became a German prisoner of
war after being captured in the Battle of the Bulge. He was sent
to Dresden, an open city that produced no war machinery; thus it
was off-limits to allied bombing. He and his fellow POW's were to
work in a vitamin-syrup factory. On February 13, 1945, however,
allied forces strafed Dresden, killing 135,000 unprotected
civilians. Vonnegut and the other POW's survived the bombing as
they waited it out deep in the cellar of a slaughterhouse, where
they were quartered.
Vonnegut was repatriated on May 22, 1945, and on September
first of that year he married Jane Marie Cox, a friend since
kindergarten, for he thought, "'Who but a wife would sleep with
me?'" (J 10).
Vonnegut spent the next two years in Chicago, attending the
University of Chicago as a graduate anthropology student, and
working for the Chicago City News Bureau as a police reporter.
When his master's thesis was rejected, he moved to Schenectedy,
New York, to work as a publicist for General Electric. It was
here that his fiction career began. On February 11, 1950,
Collier's published Vonnegut's first short story, "Report on the
Barnhouse Effect." By the next year he was making enough money
writing to quit his job at GE and move his family to West
Barnstable, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.
In 1952 his first novel, Player Piano, was published. By the
time his next novel, The Sirens of Titan, was published in 1959,
he had had dozens of short stories published, worked as an
English teacher at a school for emotionally disturbed students,
run a Saab dealership, seen his father die, witnessed the death
of his 41-year old sister, Alice, due to cancer, which occurred
less than forty-eight hours after her husband had died in a train
accident, and had adopted three of Alice's four children to add
to his own stable of three kids.
The sixties were highlighted by the publication of four more
novels, a collection of short stories, and a two-year residency
at the famous University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. The decade
culminated with the publication of Vonnegut's sixth, and still
best, novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, in 1968.
The early seventies were an interesting and hectic time for
Vonnegut. Much in demand as the voice of the college-aged
generation, he spent time teaching creative writing at Harvard,
wrote a mildly successful off-Broadway play, got divorced, and
saw his son Mark suffer a schizophrenic breakdown. By the time
Breakfast of Champions was published in 1973, Vonnegut's life was
starting to slow down just a bit as he dropped from his pinnacle
in the national spotlight. The critically lambasted Slapstick
appeared in 1976, which was followed by 1979's Jailbird.
  
 
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