Novelist Kurt Vonnegut, the author of fourteen novels including ìSlaughterhouse-Fiveî and ìCatís Cradle,î died last night in Manhattan at the age of 84 after suffering irreversible brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago.
Vonnegut has always interested me, probably because he rented a house in Iowa City one summer back in the 1960’s next to my big family’s home on Brown Street while he was teaching at the University of Iowa’s heralded Writer’s Workshop. Vonnegut kept to himself mostly, although my brothers, friends and I would occasionally see him watching us play baseball and football in a big open field that adjoined the house he rented. This was around the time he was probably working on “Slaughterhouse Five” (my favorite), which may explain why my friends and I noticed one day a rather extensive array of empty liquor bottles teeming from the trash cans in the back yard of Vonnegut’s house. Chivas Regal was Vonnegut’s preferred brand at the time. May his restless and somewhat tormented soul rest in peace.