Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt VonnegutΓÇÖs masterpiece,Slaughterhouse-Five is ΓÇ£a desperatepainfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth centuryΓÇ¥ (Time). Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Slaughterhouse-Fivean American classicis one of the worldΓÇÖs great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresdenthe novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fictionscience fictionautobiographyand satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrima barberΓÇÖs son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut hadBilly experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonneguthe experiences time travelor coming ΓÇ£unstuck in time.ΓÇ¥ An instant bestsellerSlaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literaturea reputation that only strengthened over timedespite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of VonnegutΓÇÖs writingΓÇöthe political edginessthe genre-bending inventivenessthe frank violencethe transgressive witΓÇöthat have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman MailerJohn IrvingMichael CrichtonTim OΓÇÖBrienMargaret AtwoodElizabeth StroutDavid SedarisJennifer Eganand J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in VonnegutΓÇÖs words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as ΓÇ£the kind of writer who made peopleΓÇöyoung people especiallyΓÇöwant to write.ΓÇ¥ George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be ΓÇ£the greaturgentpassionate American writer of our centurywho offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.ΓÇ¥ More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam WarVonnegutΓÇÖs portrayal of political disillusionmentPTSDand postwar anxiety feels as relevantdarkly humorousand profoundly affecting as everan enduring beacon through our own eraΓÇÖs uncertainties.