Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
    And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
    And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
    Audiobook17 hours

    And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life

    Written by Charles J. Shields

    Narrated by Fred Berman

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    New York Times best-selling author and biographer Charles J. Shields crafts this fascinating portrait of literary icon Kurt Vonnegut. The first authorized biography of the influential American writer, And So It Goes examines Vonnegut's life from his childhood to his death in 2007 and explores how the author changed the conversation of American literature.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 11, 2012
    ISBN9781461847427
    Author

    Charles J. Shields

    Charles J. Shields is the author of Harper Lee’s New York Times bestselling biography Mockingbird, the Kurt Vonnegut biography And So It Goes, and the biography of John Edward Williams, The Man Who Wrote the Perfect Novel. Shields has spoken to hundreds of large audiences in schools, libraries, museums, and historic theaters and appeared in newspapers and magazines worldwide, including the Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, Huffington Post, and New York Times.

    Related to And So It Goes

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      What David Foster Wallace Ate

      Sep 12, 2018

      What David Foster Wallace Ate
      8 min read

    • Article

      Jonathan Coe: ‘People Say, Where’s The Anger? It’s Still There’

      Aug 19, 2023

      In a career spanning more than 35 years, notable for novels such as What a Carve Up! and The Rotters’ Club, author Jonathan Coe has established himself as one of the UK’s keenest satirists. His works have become bestsellers in translation, and he’s b

      4 min read

    • Article

      Stacy Schiff

      Dec 15, 2017

      Stacy Schiff
      26 min read

    • Article

      I Know He Enjoyed Your Calls

      Nov 25, 2019

      I kept finding reasons to visit Frank. Did he still have letters he and Irma exchanged during the war when he was in the Pacific? Photos of the two of them? The post I Know He Enjoyed Your Calls appeared first on The Millions.

      9 min read

    • Article

      The Books That Made My Father

      Jan 26, 2023

      There was much to do after my father died last year, following a prolonged bout with blood cancer. Not just the funeral arrangements but the other logistical matters: ridding my parents’ house of medical supplies, sorting through financial documents.

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Fiction No. 260

      Sep 12, 2023

      The Art of Fiction No. 260
      32 min read

    • Article

      A Space for Bette Howland

      May 6, 2019

      A Space for Bette Howland
      7 min read

    • Article

      Vonnegut Inc.

      Nov 25, 2020

      Vonnegut Inc.
      8 min read

    • Article

      Liminal Spaces

      Nov 2, 2020

      Liminal Spaces
      11 min read

    • Article

      Secret Sex Lives In Victorian England

      Jan 26, 2023

      NEW YEAR, NEW LIFE. As we march under cover of bravado into 2023, the first piece of good news is an impressive debut novel whose achievement largely matches its ambition. The New Life by Tom Crewe, an editor at the London Review of Books, is a story

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Forgotten Form

      Oct 10, 2018

      CRISTEN HEMINGWAY JAYNES is an author and a photographer based in London. She is the former editor of chum literary magazine and is the great-granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway. Her story collection, The Smallest of Entryways, was published by Church

      8 min read

    • Article

      A Letter from New York

      Dec 10, 2019

      A Letter from New York
      10 min read

    • Article

      In Memory of Stanley Cavell

      Jun 21, 2018

      In Memory of Stanley Cavell
      4 min read

    • Article

      ‘Queer Art Can Be De-sexed – I Don’t Want To Be A Part Of That’: Author Justin Torres On Going Gothic

      Nov 4, 2023

      It is morning in Manhattan, and the 43-year-old novelist Justin Torres is lying in bed, head propped up on one hand. He uprooted to the west coast of America a decade ago to teach English at UCLA, but was out late last night partying with friends fro

      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘I Learned To Lower The Threshold’: Karl Ove Knausgaard On His Process, Passions And Life After My Struggle

      Oct 1, 2023

      How to interview a writer whose account of the first 40 years of his life was so infinitely – perhaps I mean infernally – detailed, it ran to 4,000 pages? If I were Karl Ove Knausgaard, the writer in question, this piece would begin with a long descr

      9 min read

    • Article

      Paul Theroux: ‘Writing Is A Blood Sport. One Does Have Differences With People’

      Oct 2, 2022

      In an ideal world – by which I mean one that lives up to my most energetic fantasies – Paul Theroux and I would be meeting in some far flung and exotic place: on an empty platform in a distant railway station, or under a date palm in a dried-up deser

      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for And So It Goes

    4/5

    94 ratings24 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      All in all a very informative overview of Kurt Vonnegut's life. I enjoyed learning so much about one of my favorite authors but I was dissatisfied with the very abrupt ending without any kind of epilogue or afterward about events that transpired after Vonnegut's death. The last sentence of the book is simply: "Kurt Vonnegut died on April 11, 2007." Not a very unique way to end a biography, but whatever. It's still a good read for any Vonnegut fan interested in the personal life and development of the author behind so many great works of literature.
    • 4/5
      Kurt Vonnegut has been one of my favorite authors since I read Slaughterhouse-Five in high school. I'm certain that that sentence would be repeated by many of his fans. Given my love for him, reading this biography seemed a great opportunity. I'm not often moved by the deaths of famous folks, but I was truly stricken by Vonnegut's passing. I still am, all these years later. I enjoy many authors, but he is one of the few who I am emotionally invested in. I've read quite a lot of Vonneguts's non-fiction, much of which is autobiographical (as is some of his fiction), so it's interesting to note how my perception of certain elements of his life differ from how they are portrayed in Sheilds' book. For instance, I had been under the impression that his first marriage was pretty awful and that in his second marriage he had found a true soul mate, someone who understood him and his needs better. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, his first wife was quite understanding, though he was often harsh and even cruel with her. His second marriage was to a bit of a bitch. She was quite controlling and the whole thing seemed far less than ideal. As I said, a vast difference from the impression I got from his autobiographical works. Funny how that works. I'm not going to lie: It was a little bit disturbing to learn just how much of an asshole he really was. It's true he freely admitted it, owning it such that he started drawing an asshole (basically an asterisk) alongside his signature. Assholery aside, I still would have loved to meet the man. After all, he was generally pretty awesome with people he met and had only a passing acquaintance with. It was his friends and family whom he often treated poorly. I had real difficulty reading the last part of this book. Perhaps it was because I was reading about the extended death of his first marriage while my own relationship was ending. Did nothing to help my depression, let me tell you. Despite my own problems, I really enjoyed this book. I learned so much about Vonnegut and have an even greater appreciation for him and his work. This book has made me eager to delve into some of his fiction that I haven't yet read, and to re-read others. I highly recommend this to all fans of Vonnegut. They will certainly gain a lot from it.
    • 5/5
      I thought about giving this four stars, because it doesn't really try to get inside Kurt's head, but then, all of Vonnegut's books are so autobiographical that it wouldn't have added much. This biography gives you all the context you could want to go along with the inner life in the books. Going over that in detail would have added another hundred or two pages to the bio without much benefit. I'd much rather spend the time re-reading The Sirens of Titan or Slaughterhouse Five, now that I know where they came from.

      Warning, this is a sad book in many places. Vonnegut was a sad and damaged person. Perhaps the one weakness in this bio is that it goes through the POW years pretty quickly. Those years never left Vonnegut.
    • 5/5
      Back in the 60s, everyone read Kurt Vonnegut – for his humor, his satire, his snarky comments, and his off-beat and quirky style. I tried Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse 5. I rated both “Meh!” Recently I came across some of his later works, and I went back and re-read the two early novels. While I didn’t really enjoy, the novels, I was curious about them. Then, along comes a new biography of Vonnegut, And So It Goes, by Charles J. Shields. Now I have a much better understanding of Vonnegut and a greater appreciation for his work.Shields authored Mockingbird, a best-selling biography of Harper Lee. A former teacher, Shields has served as a reporter for NPR, a journalist, and the author of several non-fiction books for children. His biography of Vonnegut, is detailed, well-documented, and illustrated with several photos of important people and moments in the life of the quirky author.Kurt Vonnegut had a difficult life. He constantly found himself in the shadow of his older brother, Bernard, who informed the young Kurt he was “an accident.” He also had a difficult relationship with his father. Added to that was a rocky marriage complicated by the arrival several nieces and nephews orphaned by a train wreck (their father) and the death of Alice (their mother) of cancer a few days later.At a party, Kurt sat down to play the piano. Two women joined him, and the bench collapsed. Shield’s writes, “Beneath the hilarity, though, several women got the impression that [Kurt’s wife] Jane, pregnant, already had two children on her hands: three-year-old Mark and her husband. ‘Being Mrs. Vonnegut,” said one of her friends, ‘was not a nine-to-five-job because he was not inclined to do things for himself.’ When attention strayed from Kurt, she tried to direct it back to him. He didn’t deem like the typical father, either, at least to another dad at the party – rather distant, in fact. When Mark [Kurt’s son] rode his tricycle into the room, Kurt said quietly, ‘Mark, that’s gauche,’ and let it go at that. Nevertheless, Jane whisked around the party, floating on happiness. // Two months later, on December 29, their second child Edith was born.” (110).Vonnegut also had a peculiar relationship with his wife. Kurt wanted to move to Cape Cod where he could befriend other writers, and have the peace and solitude he needed to write. Shields explains, “From now on, they would live for the arts. They would read the best and latest books, discuss them, make notes to each other in the margins, and give full rein to Kurt’s career in a location that couldn’t be more salubrious for creativity. They must do it – to be true to themselves. And for Kurt it was the vicarious realization of his mother’s dream to live and write on Cape Cod’ (118). Vonnegut also agonized over the suicide of his mother. This tragedy, together with his knotty relationships and his World War II experiences as a P.O.W. in Dresden during the horrific firebombing by British and American air forces shaped his personality and informed his style. Kurt Vonnegut is an important figure in post-war fiction. Charles J. Shields’ biography, And So It Goes, Kurt Vonnegut: A Life sheds a brilliant light on this quirky writer. It also led me to a better understanding of his fiction. 5 stars.--Jim, 6/2/15
    • 5/5
      "What a biographer is looking for is patterns of behavior."Charles J. Shields, "And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life"That may be true, but it is the exceptions to those patterns, the inconsistencies, that make a life interesting.Charles J. Shields, whose "Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee" was such a fine literary biography, equals that with "And So It Goes," his 2011 portrait of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. And for all the clear patterns of behavior in Vonnegut's life, the inconsistencies prove just as important.Shields makes much of the fact that Vonnegut, while the darling of the Left from the time he became a major literary figure in the 1960s, was in many ways a conservative at heart. Like a reactionary, says Shields, he longed for the good old days. He hated the way his world was changing. Vonnegut may have spoken out against Big Business, yet he invested heavily in the stock market and counted on Big Business to protect his fortune. Vonnegut wrote and spoke often about the importance of family and old-time values, yet his own family life was a mess. He preached the value of friendship and cooperation, yet he betrayed many of his own friends and the people he did business with.Vonnegut was one of many novelists to come out of World War II, yet it took him decades to write the war novel that would make his reputation, "Slaughterhouse-Five." A prisoner of war, he had been in Dresden during the fire bombing that destroyed the city in 1944. He survived by being underground at the time, in Slaughterhouse-Five, yet being underground he wasn't actually a witness to the bombing, so he didn't know how to tell the story. Finally he found a way using science fiction, time travel and aliens from space to create one of the most unique novels of the 20th century.He continued to write, but none of his subsequent books measured up to his masterpiece, although some of his earlier novels, virtually ignored when first published, later became admired. His shrinking reputation frustrated Vonnegut. He now had fame and fortune, yet with each new novel, critics took him less and less seriously. Many of his books were bestsellers, but he hated being thought a literary fraud.Had Vonnegut been true to his values; been faithful to Jane, his first and best wife; been a better father and a better friend, he most likely would have had a happier life than he had. But his biography, if anyone even bothered to write one, would have been much less interesting.
    • 5/5
      Shields's sorrowful account of a writer who outlived his inspiration without ever outrunning his demons, makes for compelling, if often grim, reading. Vonnegut is presented as an Eeyore sort of character, who is pushed through life by those who surround him. His happiest moments were those that had him in control: convincing Jane, his long-time love, to marry him; selling his first story; and initiating a mid-life affair that lasted for over 30 years, through the end of his first marriage and into his second.From the beginning, life had been foisted on him. His older brother Bernard had happily taunted him that he was a mistake, an unwanted pregnancy—knowledge no doubt gleaned from his parents' loud and frequent arguments. His once-wealthy family lost their fortune during the Great Depression, and his mother, who knew nothing about rearing children or running a household without servants and a bottomless budget, never recovered from the shock of losing the wealth and social status that had been hers from birth. Though his siblings were encouraged to pursue their chosen interests (Bernard was a science prodigy and sister Alice displayed native talent as a visual artist), young Kurt's desire to pursue writing was not just discouraged, but was ignored. He was pushed into pursuing a degree in science at Cornell. He did not do well.In January 1943 Vonnegut withdrew from school and enlisted in the Army to join the conflict that he later called "a war that had to be fought." While he was home on leave before shipping out for the European front, his mother committed suicide. It was Mother's Day. Months later, after only three days near the front, in what came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge, his regiment was ordered to surrender. Vonnegut, along with the others who survived the march to the POW camp, with barely enough food to survive and senselessly brutal treatment, spent the balance of World War II as a prisoner of war.He saw fellow captives die when Allied planes, believing they had located a German supply train, bombed the cars carrying American POWs. He stood by while fellow prisoners died from sickness and starvation, and witnessed the execution of a starving prisoner who had taken a jar of pickles from a deserted German home. He was a member of the POW work details that pulled thousands of German civilian bodies from the rubble of bombed-out Dresden—day after day, alternating between hiding in the bowels of a slaughterhouse, while bombs battered the city, and emerging to haul more bodies to mass graves.His work is consistently autobiographical and always very funny. I suppose that should have been the tip-off that he didn't practice the loving kindness that his books preached. It is usual that funny people make fun of what they find painful, and that's certainly what Vonnegut did. His chosen genre of speculative fiction allowed him to tell his tales of woe by picking at the scabs with a sharp dark wit, all the while searching for hopeful solutions to the world's injustice and misery.Vonnegut died at 84 from injuries sustained during an accidental fall at home. It was none too soon for him. He had been through with life long before it was through with him. His later years seemed full of complaints about his childhood, his father, and his older brother. He was close to his sister Alice and, later, to his daughter Edith, forming only awkward relationships with his sons and the nephews he took in when his sister died from cancer only days after her husband died in a freak train wreck. Shields writes that Vonnegut was miserable in his second marriage but repeatedly returned from their frequent separations, preferring the social busyness of his life in New York society, engineered by his wife, to a life of quiet solitude. He seemed to think that happiness was just an illusion to be occasionally tasted.Shields writes that Vonnegut thought the perfect short story was Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Bierce's protagonist, a civil war soldier, is about to be hanged when the rope miraculously breaks and he is dropped into the water and makes his escape. After a frantic dash for freedom he arrives at his house. As his wife reaches to embrace him, the escape is revealed to be an illusion that occupied his mind in the split second between the moment he is dropped and the moment his neck snaps. Shields proposes that Vonnegut and Bierce, both veterans of major wars, may have been suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.With or without a natural inclination for gloomy resignation, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. did not have a happy childhood and began adulthood in a nightmarish experience where heroism was measured by the ability to survive. This knowledge is a cushion for my disappointment in finding that he betrayed friendships, dumped responsibility for the family on his wife, and was generally "a very difficult person" with those to whom he was closest. I stack my sins against his and find the number of failings humanly similar. And I am grateful that somewhere inside all that constant low-level misery beat the heart of a champion for humanity. Maybe that's why he tolerated such a miserable existence, he really believed that everyone else was miserable, too.
    • 5/5
      I have read very few biographies, so I find it difficult to review a book in the genre. For all I know, any biography I come across could be a standout in the field, or it could be a pedestrian effort that covers little more than the basics. It would be hard for me to tell in many cases, but in short I enjoyed this biography of Kurt Vonnegut immensely. In part, I think it was well researched and thoughtfully written. It also benefits from being the only full biography of Vonnegut out there, so it has no competitors for top spot.

      I can imagine a Vonnegut bio that would have been more engaging on some points, wider ranging in sources and opinions, more analytical in critiquing all of his works, but of course the writer always has to make choices. In biography especially, he is restricted by the material and people he can use in building his profile. People say no, you may not interview me. People say no, you may not use those unpublished letters or that diary, because I own the rights. And in the case of Vonnegut himself, people sometimes say okay, but you picked a bad time to get my assent, because unfortunately I won't be around much longer to answer your questions.

      And so it goes, indeed.
    • 4/5
      Still trying to formulate what I want to say here. I enjoyed the window into Kurt Vonnegut's life -- he's always been kind of furniture-like in my reading life, a major gateway to more sophisticated reading when I was in my early teens but not anyone I had a sense of past his books, so that was interesting and enlightening.But I had a very strong sense that I wasn't reading the book that showed up on the shelves in the middle of November. Mine was a galley and really thick with copy editing errors, notably more than just about any pre-pub version of a book I can remember reading. I'm sure there was a push to get it out on time for Vonnegut's birthday, and hence to push the galleys along, but it was like no one had even read page proofs. And while that kind of thing is eminently forgivable, I have to wonder how much line editing was done on the book as well before final publication. It was enormously full of detail -- Shields' research was exhaustive -- to the point where some paring down would have streamlined and helped. And hey, if I can see that, I imagine the good editors at Henry Holt would have picked up on it as well, and I'm not going to feel comfortable quibbling with anything stylistic about the book until I can check out a finish copy. My criticisms aren't huge, really, but they definitely exist as far as the version I read. But as a biography, and as far as the subject matter goes, it's good stuff. What a sad fellow Vonnegut was. And Jill Krementz, his second wife, comes off as the world's worst harpy.
    • 4/5
      And So It Goes is a very probing biography that goes to the very core of Vonnegut’s psyche. We see his early insecurities and how he found a way to get attention among his distinguished family, as well as gain prominence as a writer. There is very familiar territory here that has been retold countless times in Vonnegut’s own works. However, Shields reveals the man behind the stories and finds some very ugly truths. It reveals a writer that struggled through most of his career, not achieving the success that would make him famous for almost 20 years. In that time, he wasn’t the most effusive family man or very dedicated to his wife. The fame attributed to him seemed to create a persona that really wasn’t his own. That those who read Slaughterhouse-Five were expecting someone more grandiose as opposed to a writer just trying to make ends meet. The sad conclusion in the latter half of the book was a fight over his will and the feeling by Vonnegut that he had outlived his usefulness. It would have been better to be famous and then die. The book was important to me. I am a big fan of Vonnegut’s works so it was illuminating to find more to the story behind those works. Shields does an excellent job piecing together this biography. He provides the feeling of those who were closest to Vonnegut. All the wrongs, the slights, and anecdotes reveal interesting contradictions and an honesty that even though Vonnegut wrote extensively about himself, didn’t really reveal. The man in the story doesn’t always match the man in the prologue.
    • 4/5
      I almost gave this four stars, but I couldn't quite do it. I'm a huge Vonnegut fan (of his books) and, prior to this, knew very little about his life, especially about his public persona. I was caught off-guard by how depressing this book ended up being. Sure, I get that he had tragedy in his life, but the man who brought me so much joy as a reader... I don't know, I guess I just wished him a little more happiness. That said, I get that not every life is a happy one and "depressing" sort of goes hand in hand with creative genius. I enjoyed the book overall because I am such fan. Not too sure if readers unfamiliar with Vonnegut (or not as in love with him as I am) will find this biography satisfying. Also, not to beat a subject while it's down, but I felt the writer, Shields, tried too hard to put absolutely everything in this book. Some editing, trimming, would have helped the pacing.
    • 4/5
      I am borderline 3 1/2 and 4 stars on this. Shields does a thorough job writing Vonnegut's history, but using such a sizable cache of private letters as your main primary sources leads to, what feel to me, as forcing things in sometimes. There were instances that stories were referenced that had been mentioned in a letter that weren't really relevant to the topic at hand, and it seemed like he kind of jammed them in because he felt they needed to get in the book somewhere. I also think he was a bit unfair with later works such as Bluebeard, which he kind of pans a bit. Overall a nice job and required reading for the Vonnegut-o-phile.
    • 4/5
      When I agreed to read this book and write this review, the only thing I knew about Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was he had written “Slaughterhouse-Five”. After reading this biography, I know feel I know everything about him. Of course that’s not really true.Mr. Shields covers Mr. Vonnegut’s life from beginning to end, cradle to grave, at the end is an appendix with more family history. In detailing what happens in his life, we also get an understanding of why he felt the way he did, his experience in life affecting his personality, as it does with all of us.“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all,” says his protagonist Malachi Constant in ‘Sirens of Titans.This was how Vonnegut felt about his life, his family and society in general, a society that he felt had rejected him. Society that didn’t take him seriously as a writer, his life’s work.As big as this book is, it cover’s 85 years after all, it is not boring. Mr. Shields coverage of Mr. Vonnegut is complete but not wordy and while bringing to us all the important details does not get bogged down in them, making for a very readable biography. A biography written the way a biography should be written.
    • 4/5
      Charles Shields’ authorized biography of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., And So It Goes, has caused some controversy lately. Vonnegut died a little less than a year after beginning to work with Shields on the biography. Jill Krementz, Vonnegut’s widow, refused to participate even when Kurt was alive, and Mark Vonnegut, his son and co-executor, refused to let Shields quote directly from Vonnegut’s letters after his death. Mark has even publicly denounced the biography recently. Nonetheless Shields conducted extensive interviews and combed through more than 1,500 letters for five years. And So It Goes presents Kurt Vonnegut as a human, a complicated mix of good and bad. He was a writer by trade trying to make sense of the world he lived in.I thought the biography was fairly extensive (roughly 400 pages) and paced well. Vonnegut was shaped by a series of complicated events and Shields does a good job documenting those critical events: his childhood marked by his family’s fall from fortune during the Great Depression and as a result his mother’s suicide; the struggle between his brother’s excellence at science and his desire to write; his experience as a prisoner of war in Dresden, which most people know later became the critical impetus for his most beloved novel, Slaughter-House Five; excelling as a PR man for General Electric; and his sister and brother-in-law’s tragic deaths that led Vonnegut to adopt their three children, which placed six children total under his wife at the time, Jane, and his care.Shields does an especially good job capturing Vonnegut’s struggles as a new writer with a family of six children. Vonnegut was diligent in his writing regime, waking every morning and hunching over his typewriter for hours. It was the era of magazines, and Vonnegut paid his dues selling stories. Vonnegut’s novels didn’t come easily, but he followed his morning writing ritual for much of his life. Shields gives critical analyses of Vonnegut’s early novels, but his later novels don’t receive as much attention. Vonnegut was troubled by critics for much of his career, but especially with his later work.I also found Vonnegut’s experiences at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop especially interesting. It was that experience that ultimately gave him the inspiration and motivation to complete Slaughterhouse-Five. I was also unaware that Vonnegut taught and befriended many great writers, like John Irving and one of my favorites, Andre Dubus. It was the first time that he felt like part of the literary community. His time at the workshop also led to an extra-marital affair that sped the end of his already stressed first marriage.Writer Naeem Murr once told me, when he was the writer-in-residence at my my college, he didn’t think it was a good idea for artists to have children, because the art often takes everything the artist has. If you look at the lives of famous writers, you’ll find that this is often true. Vonnegut was no exception. Though he had enduring relationships with his wives and children, those relationships were often strained due to his work and his life-long battle with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.Shields begins the book with an appropriate quote from Vonnegut’s Wampeters, Foma & Granfallons (1974), “I keep losing and regaining my equilibrium, which is the basic plot of all popular fiction. And I myself am a work of fiction.” That quote sums up what I found most revealing about the biography. Much of Vonnegut’s image among his loyal readers, myself included, is part of the fiction. Vonnegut was on the cutting of edge of the new metafiction technique in literature, and he became popular during the 1960s. Shields writes about the film adaptation of Mother Night: …in the film, Vonnegut is not there to intervene the way he could in metafiction—there is no safe, ironic distance in the storytelling—so that the film Mother Night unfolds pretty much as straight drama. The problem, Vonnegut later came to realize, was that filmed versions of his novels are one character short: himself.Placing a fictional character of himself in his books is what makes them great, but the demand for that fictional character on speaking tours, as a creative writing teacher, and during interviews was something Vonnegut often wrestled with throughout life. Shields touches on that struggle throughout the biography: His readers assumed the voice they trusted in the novels was rooted in a combination of wisdom and sophistication, but the truth was different. Vonnegut was more like his readers than they could have guessed. His themes of community and extended family for persons who are naïve or lonely had much to do with how he saw himself, and he idealized some of his boyhood. His summers at Lake Maxinkuckee had been his communal paradise lost…I didn’t find the fact that Vonnegut was sometimes sad, cruel, or distant surprising. He’s human. If you’ve ever read his nonfiction essays, you will see all of those things, as well as humor, love, and kindness. What I found most surprising were the seeming contradictions between how his readers viewed him and his conservative nature. For example, Vonnegut was a shrewd investor in companies like Dow Chemical and Texas International Drilling Funds. Shields explains that Vonnegut didn’t object to capitalism, but the use of capitalism to “justify the power of the rich over the poor.” Vonnegut’s views of sexuality and society were also relatively conservative. Shields writes: Unfortunately, many of his younger readers and fans misjudged him…Sometimes their wrong impression created awkward, man-behind-the-curtain moments when at last they saw him in person. In the spring of 1972, for instance, he spent one morning at West Point visiting classes and in the afternoon delivered a lecture. At the end of the lecture, a cadet who had been looking forward to the event approached him. “And he said, ‘I can’t imagine you wrote those books,’ and I had, I swear to God I had, but I was not the man he thought should have written those books.”Vonnegut was a brilliant PR man. He created his own image, much like Mark Twain, which is discussed in the book as well. Whether that image conflicts with him in reality doesn’t matter. His work stands on its own. In fact, that image is part of the artistry. I believe much of the controversy over this biography is unwarranted. Krementz and Mark Vonnegut may use the premise that they are defending Kurt’s image, but the truth is they are likely more worried about how they are portrayed. Shields’ work is heavily annotated and documented. Anyone who is a fan of Vonnegut should read this biography.
    • 4/5
      When you get right down to, everyone is just like everyone else – even if they happen to have written one of the most important books of our times. People act like people. They get married. The marriage works for a short time or a long time or for some time in between. The married couple leans on each other for various strengths. They have kids. The kids various succeed in becoming adults. Tragedies occur. There is success. There is failure. And, again, life goes on. And this book shows, if nothing else, that Vonnegut was just a human like the rest of us.This book is strong in that it gives you the life of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. It is weak because, in spite of his genius, he is nothing more than a human being, and most of what we see of his life is either already reflected in his books, or is the mundane life of middle-America – a life lived much like many of us. (Just a little bit more fame and, eventually, more money.)What this means is that the primary interest will be for those who already are fans of Vonnegut’s work. For those who are looking for an interesting story about a man who they know little about, it will not be particularly riveting. For the fan, the background on how the books got to be written is excellent. And Vonnegut’s reaction to his stardom – as a spokesman for a generation he was not a part of – is different than one might expect. However, if you only have a passing interest in Vonnegut, you may find this to be a sad book – or a book about which you are indifferent. Because, when it is all said and done, Vonnegut’s life (outside the Dresden firebombing) was really not that exciting. It is a story of betrayals and divorces and of a man who worries that he is a one-trick-pony – with nothing more to add than one great novel. And, as such, it is really a story about everyman. All leading to this appraisal of the book – your interest in this book will be directly related to your interest in the subject. I found it somewhat interesting because I am a fan who has read quite a bit of Vonnegut’s book. Your mileage may vary.
    • 5/5
      In this painstakingly researched and loving biography of Kurt Vonnegut, Charles J. Shields paints a rich and balanced portrait of a very complicated author. Shields reveals Kurt Vonnegut as a conflicted and often contradictory human being, and sadly, in the end, a lonely and unhappy old man in this fascinating and highly readable look at his life. I count Kurt Vonnegut among my favorite authors, since discovering Slaughterhouse Five in a college English course in the 1970's. Billy Pilgrim became my touchstone for understanding war-damaged friends and family, and Kurt Vonnegut became my guide to viewing humanity, progress and the insanity of war through new eyes. I had already discovered Twain and Thurber, but Vonnegut was in a class by himself. I became enamored with his world view, his cynicism and his sense of humor and read practically everything he wrote. His books made me laugh and cry and think, which is exactly what happened when I read Charles Shield's biography. I learned that Kurt Vonnegut was a very different man than his public persona, much more complex and flawed and human than I had imagined. Now that I have read this mesmerizing and educational look at Vonnegut's life and the history that shaped it, I owe it to myself start all over again, rereading his body of work through new eyes. Armed with context, I imagine the reading experience will be very different. I can't wait to find out. Listen. The best endorsement I can give Mr. Shield's work is this:And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life will reside in a place of honor, on the top shelf of my bookcase, with all my other keep forever books, right next to my Vonnegut collection. It is that good.Note: The advance copy was rife with typographical errors, which distracted from my enjoyment and my rating slightly. Hopefully they were all corrected prior to publication.
    • 4/5
      Review: 50 of seventy-fiveTitle: [AND SO IT GOES: Kurt Vonnegut A Life]Author: [[CHARLES J. SHIELDS]]Rating: 4.25* of fiveThe Book Report: Shields, whose biography of Harper Lee was a New York Times bestseller, is set to do it again with this life of the ineffable Kurt Vonnegut, father to Kilgore Trout, Billy Pilgrim, and the unforgettable Montana Wildhack. If any of these names fails to ring a bell with you, please exit the room via the door marked “DUH”. Anyone sixty-five or under should recognize failed SF writer Kilgore Trout as the real hero of [Breakfast of Champions] (and Vonnegut’s ironic alter ego). Anyone of any age who fails to recognize Billy Pilgrim or Montana Wildhack as the forces in [Slaughterhouse-Five] hasn’t read the book. Shame! Shame! Shields began this project with Vonnegut’s blessing. While he was a very short way into the project, Vonnegut suffered the fatal accident (in exactly the way he predicted he would, more than thirty years before it happened) that silenced his curmudgeonly trumpetings from the marshes of sanity, where he spent a forty-year career attempting to bring the rest of us into awareness of the fact that we’re heading the wrong damn way down the shaggy, overgrown path of conformity and unquestioning obedience to Authority. Vonnegut himself wasn’t a willing follower of much of anything, be it a rule or a custom or an order. He did what was expected of him as a husband and a father, in his day and time, but the book illuminates the unspoken reluctance of his participation in any life that wasn’t of, and in, the mind. Writing was Vonnegut’s ruling passion. It trumped all things corporeal. It gave him, as Shields brings out without beating us over the head with the knowledge, a sense of himself as an actor in the world and not just a spectator.After Vonnegut’s death, his widow and his oldest son pulled back from full participation in the preparation of this life. I think that was not a good decision, myownself, because a more appreciative and less tendentious biography I have yet to read. I think the author’s intent was to write a real life of the man, not to grind an axe to a sharp edge in order to slice and dice the reputation of anyone. That’s rare. And it’s a delight to see it done so well.My Review: I don’t know about you, but this Boomer cut his literary teeth on Vonnegut. No one can claim full citizenship in the USA without reading [Slaughterhouse-Five]. It’s in the Constitution, it just has to be. The experience of the firebombing of Dresden, firsthand, from an emotional standpoint and by a man who lived through it, is something that all of us in this self-satisfied, we’re always right, country need to experience. It’s not an anti-war novel. It’s not a screaming polemic. It’s a man’s attempt to put his life into perspective, and that life includes one experience…the firebombing…that renders perspective forever out of reach. And Vonnegut was always looking for perspective in his work. The author of this life seeks out the actors in his life, and then more or less gets out of the way while they fill him in on what it was like to know Kurt Vonnegut. In a strange way, I think this book would have appealed to the negative, curmudgeonly, perpetual victim that was Vonnegut, because he would have at last seen his own life in perspective.Perfect he was not. He stank as a father. He wasn’t a good husband to his first wife, insulting her, cheating on her, demanding she be his servant girl (though it’s never put this way in the book, it was really really clear to me that this was so); he was a crap friend to some very deserving people, eg Knox Burger, whose editorial support Vonnegut repaid by pusillanimously giving then withdrawing his very significant business dealings from Burger, who had founded a literary agency on the strength of Vonnegut’s being his client. But his talent was in storytelling, in distilling the life he wasn’t good at living into thought-provoking and very trenchant morality tales.Even if you haven’t read Vonnegut before now (!), read this life. It is a great roadmap to the 20th century’s preoccupations. And, I will just bet, it will make the previously unexposed curious enough about this mordant, tendentious, ironical storyteller to pick up one of his books.
    • 4/5
      Shields' writing reads like a Rolling Stone article in some places but never a standard, run-of-the-mill biography. Shields walks you through Vonnegut's life, providing vignettes to help the reader dissect or understand his life--it's hard to tell which. As a huge Vonneut fan, understanding of his shortcomings but appreciative of his ability to write, I was pleased with the text overall. Shields brings to life and light a side of Vonnegut many have only guessed at from Vonnegut's books and meager snippets about him found elsewhere around the world. I was pleased that Vonnegut had a biography, something to describe him in a manner in which he agreed, albeit not too far removed from his own death. Had Shields been able to spend more time with Vonnegut I think the vignettes would have been more cohesive and Shields would have been able to piece them together to provide the reader with the best honest picture of Vonnegut. As it stands, it's a worthwhile addition to a Vonnegut lover's bookshelf and should provide others interested in biographies a window into the background and life of a man who produced some of the most challenging and interesting works of the last century.
    • 3/5
      While I found the book interesting, and Shields does a nice job of presenting Vonnegut in all his conflicted complexity, I also found the book rather too dense. One wonders how much material--if any--Shields had but chose _not_ to include in the interest of creating a tighter narrative. Shields' style--which is very episodic, focusing on many, many individual events which he deems to be significant and revealing--is more suited to an autobiography, where the narrator himself can imbue the events with meaning or at least to a close personal biography, more like a personal memoir of a famous person. This is, of course, what shields had hoped to write, but he simply waited too late. Vonnegut died too early in his research. The result is a lucid but unfortunately rather distant biography that clearly differs from the style Shields prefers to work in.
    • 4/5
      As an avid fan of his work, I was extremely excited to read this. I always like to know the 'method behind the madness' as it were, and this book showed a very thorough and detailed look into the mind of one of my favorite authors. It read like a novel, with the hints and nuances of real life shining through in the stories of his home life. Well done.
    • 5/5
      And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A LifeCharles J. ShieldsHenry Holt and Co. November 8th, 2011Trade PaperbackAdvance Reader’s Edition494 pages“And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life” by Charles J. Shields is the definitive biography of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Thoughtful and thought-provoking “And So It Goes” provides genuine insight into the life of one of the world’s truly extraordinary writers. Whether pointing out the negatives regarding the rolls of science and technology in society or finding humor in almost everything that happened to him, Vonnegut has never failed to entertain. And in “And So It Goes” Shield gives us the complexities of Vonnegut’s heavy thought and in the process allows us to see the human lurking beneath the mask of the writer. Vonnegut has been compared to Mark Twain many times, and the level and style of humor both men possessed would validate that comparison, but Vonnegut also had something to say about society and he did so with aplomb. Every aspect of Kurt Vonnegut’s life is studied here. The triumphs, the struggles, the inner turmoil and human faults are all included in great detail but in such a way as to paint a very human picture of one of our finest writers. From childhood to death this is a true study of the life of Kurt Vonnegut. “And So It Goes” is recommended for biography aficionados, Vonnegut fans, and anyone interested in the writing process (Shield’s gives Vonnegut’s views on writing and includes sage advice to Vonnegut (which still hold true today) from high-level magazine editors of the times.) Hi Ho!4 ½ stars out of 5The AlternativeSoutheast WisconsinThose who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.-Kurt Vonnegut
    • 3/5
      I wanted to read this book because Kurt Vonnegut is one of my all-time favorite authors. His inventive imagining and placing human feelings into inhuman scenarios reflect a chaotic modern world. He was never satisfied with telling a story straight or leaving any of his characters alone to wrestle with the fates he gave them by themselves. I think he was probably a better writer than a human. He wanted to be a better creator than his creator, but he was flawed in the same ways he felt god was flawed - absent and distant.I don't really care about the book aspect of this book. It wasn't spectacular. It must have been hard to papier mache a life out the pages of letters. Which got me wondering about the future of biographies. If Vonnegut were my age, for example, there wouldn't be much hard data on which to base such a biography. I've written a lot of letters, but, ever increasingly, with new technology, hard copy of written communication is shrinking. And what does exist isn't worth quoting. Quick indecipherable emails shed no light. I think if Vonnegut were still alive, he could write a biography based on emails. But who would he write about? Himself, obviously.I have to admit I cried when I got to the end of the book, like a light had gone out all over again, the extinguishing of a great star that had once burned in isolation but also as a part of a literary constellation.
    • 5/5
      A must read for any Vonnegut fan - which I am most definitely one of. I loved reading this authorized biography about the late and great Kurt Vonnegut - my absolute favorite author of all time!! We learn about his life, his writing and his iconic status and let me just say it is one fascinating read. I devoured the book and consider it to be one of my favorite reads this year! It is filled with anything and everything you would want to know about KV. I am recommending this to anyone and everyone who loves Vonnegut's works - you will not be disappointed!!
    • 4/5
      This isn't even my review, but I have to say, I'm having to fight to be the first one in the house to read this book. My husband and stepson both immediately grabbed it and said, "I want to read this one the SECOND you're through!"Will add more when I've finished the book.______________________I've finished the book now. I thought it was interesting and well written, but I can't decide whether reading about my favorite authors is a good thing or not. In the case of Truman Capote, it was, mainly because I was fascinated by him and knew already that his life was a complete train wreck. But in Vonnegut's case, maybe it wasn't, because the things I liked the most about his writing were his humanist leanings and his admonition to "be kind", and yet he wasn't all that kind even to his own family and friends. So, I'm having a hard time pinning down my feelings about reading this book.If you like biographies, Shields does them well. This book is obviously thoroughly researched, logically put together, and an interesting read. But if you prefer continuing to hold your heroes on a pedestal, maybe it's best you skip reading about the intimate details of their lives.I still love Vonnegut's books. And I think maybe I can appreciate them even more since it seems he aspired to the truths he wrote about, but wasn't always able to achieve them in his own life either.I just wish he'd been happier.
    • 4/5
      In my late teens and early 20s, I devoured everything Kurt Vonnegut had written, even searching through the old magazine stacks at my local library to dig up stories in publications such as The Saturday Evening Post that had never been reprinted. My father, who frequently picked up and read books after I did, also read Vonnegut’s works. After a few books, he remarked something to the effect of, “At first I really liked his books, but now I think is sort of a fake.” I never really delved into the full meaning of that statement--perhaps I didn’t need to. It was already apparent that some of Vonnegut’s works had a deeper meaning to me, such as Slaughterhouse Five and Mother Night, while others were just amusing (Cat’s Cradle) or very funny (God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Breakfast of Champions.) I was happy, then, as a LibraryThing Early Reviewer to have the opportunity to receive and review And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles J. Shields as a way of revisiting, and perhaps reevaluating, my previous obsession with Vonnegut’s books.The Vonnegut that emerges from this exhaustively researched biography is a contradictory character. Considered a spokesman for the left by some people, he remained at heart a Midwestern conservative in many ways, understanding the virtues of capitalism, and even investing in companies such as Dow Chemical, the maker of Agent Orange. He could support George McGovern for President while also finding time for a speaking engagement at West Point. He could marry his high school sweetheart, who was better educated than he was, then discourage her personal development for the 34 years of their marriage, while expecting her to act as the first and best reviewer of his writing, take care of his personal business, and be a mother to their own three children and the four children of his sister and brother-in-law who died within a few days of each other--the sister by cancer and the brother-in-law in a freakish train wreck. Meanwhile, Vonnegut carried on multiple affairs with younger women, seeming to draw strength from them for his writing, but returning time and time again to his wife and expecting her continued support for his career despite her knowledge of his affairs.This book is best in providing this sort of detailed narrative of Vonnegut’s life, from his upbringing in a well-to-do Indianapolis family whose fortunes declined after the Great Depression; to the impact of his Mother’s suicide; his love/hate relationship with his older brother Bernard, a successful scientist who tried to push Kurt into the same career path; his experience as a WW II prisoner of war present at (but underground and thus removed from) the firebombing of Dresden; his failed attempts at completing college, first at Cornell and later at the University of Chicago; his initially successful career in the PR Department at General Electric; his struggles to get his first short stories published; and his slow rise to stardom, which took over a dozen years after he abandoned GE to become a full time writer (with a brief sideline as a failed Saab dealer). Shields provides hundreds of footnotes to back up his story and it seems authoritative throughout.Shields also does a good job of tying the events in Vonnegut’s life to the events in his stories. Of course, Vonnegut often injects himself into his stories, so as a reader, I knew there was a large autobiographical element, and not just in Slaughterhouse Five. I didn’t realize, however, that at the time of Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut went back and added the personal introductions that I was so familiar with to his other novels, which reinforced their autobiographical aspect and helped to support Vonnegut’s self-driven PR campaign for himself and his books. There are other interesting links identified between Vonnegut’s life and his works, but this is still not a “literary” biography. It provides decent summary descriptions, which, oddly, seem to get more in-depth for Vonnegut's later minor works, but it still doesn’t illuminate the creative process as well as the detailed narrative illuminates the more mundane aspects of Vonnegut's existence. Shields does cover the critical reaction to each work (if any), and spends considerable time on their often tortuous process of creation. Perhaps this balance is fitting, as Vonnegut learned early in his career to write what sold, and he preached this in the writing workshops he taught at the University of Iowa and in his other stints as a college instructor. There is also an emphasis at how Vonnegut arrived at his simple, direct writing style, that so many of us feel would be so easy to imitate--until we try and fail.Nevertheless, without a better analysis of the works themselves, Vonnegut’s sudden ascent to stardom in the mid-Sixties can’t be clearly understood. Having read most of Vonnegut’s work (both fiction and non-fiction), and now having read this detailed biography, my new picture of Vonnegut is of a smart but perpetually insecure man who succeeded through sheer persistence and an innate talent for humor through which he transformed his own experience into something that many of us growing up in the tragedy of the 20th century could identify with and embrace--at least until those of us less talented than Mr. Vonnegut had to take a real job to make a living. Vonnegut doesn’t end up as a really sympathetic character, just a rather melancholy one, though the author does capture many of the kind acts Vonnegut did on behalf of groups he believed in and his writer friends who needed help.One consistent virtue of the book is that it doesn't just focus on the author; its portraits of his parents, other relatives, wives, lovers, and children are well done and essential to trying to understand Vonnegut the writer. Most of these portraits are lovingly drawn, but Vonnegut's second wife, the photographer and author Jill Krementz, comes across as an unsympathetic, controlling, monster. Her treatment of him makes the latter part of the book, as Vonnegut's health declines and his public persona fades, quite sad.More than thirty years after our first encounter, much of what Vonnegut wrote is still part of me. I cannot forget that the United States is the only nation in the world whose national anthem is gibberish sprinkled with question marks. I still consider Kilgore Trout one of our great science fiction writers, even if he existed only within Vonnegut’s universe (not counting the one-off Philip Jose Farmer pastiche, which Vonnegut regretted so much.) And I still believe that we are what we pretend to be. Vonnegut imagined himself a successful author, and he certainly became one. If the rest of his life was a bit of a mess...so it goes. This Advance Readers Copy contained a few glaring typos (missing words, repeated phrases), and there are a few outright errors, e.g., Amanda Vail’s book was called Love Me Little not Love Me a Little. I also look forward to seeing the 28 pages of pictures promised for the hardcover release. These will go a long way toward completing our picture of Kurt Vonnegut, his remarkable family and relatives, and his times.