Kurt Vonnegut: Novels 1987-1997 (LOA #273): Bluebeard / Hocus Pocus / Timequake

Description

The definitive edition of Kurt Vonnegut's fiction concludes with three brilliantly satirical novels of the 1980s and '90s collected in one volume for the first time.Here are the final three novels of thevisionary master who defined a generation. Bluebeard (1987) isthe colorful history of a phenomenally gifted realist painterwho, in the 1950s, betrayed his artistic vision for commercialsuccess. now, at seventy-one, he writes his memoirs and plotshis revenge on the worldly forces that conspired to corrupt histalent. In Hocus Pocus (1990), a freewheeling prison memoirby a Vietnam vet and disgraced academic, Vonnegut brings hisindelible voice to a range of still-burning issues-free speech,racism, environmental calamity, deindustrialization, and globalization. Timequake (1997), the author's last completed novel,is part science fiction yarn (starring perennial protagonistKilgore trout), part diary of the mid-1990s (starring theauthor himself). the result is a perfect fusion of Vonnegut's twosignature genres, the satirical fantasy and the personal essay, anda literary magician's fond farewell to his readers and his craft. Rounded out with a selection of short nonfictionpieces intimately related to these three works, thisvolume presents the final word from the artist who theSan Francisco Chronicle, reviewing Timequake, called an"old warrior who will not accept the dehumanizing ofpolitics, the blunting of conscience, and the glibness ofthe late-twentieth-century Western world." LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Sidney Offit, editor of The Library of America's four-volume Kurt Vonnegut edition, has written novels, books for young readers, and memoirs including, most recently,Friends, Writers, and Other Countrymen. He was senior editor ofIntellectual Digest, book editor ofPoliticsToday, and contributing editor ofBaseball Magazine. He wrote the foreword toLook at the Birdie, a collection of Kurt Vonnegut's unpublished short fiction.