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 the
visionary master who defined a generation. Bluebeard (1987) is the
colorful history of a phenomenally gifted realist painter who, in the
1950s, betrayed his artistic vision for commercial success. now, at
seventy-one, he writes his memoirs and plots his revenge on the worldly
forces that conspired to corrupt his talent. In Hocus Pocus (1990), a
freewheeling prison memoir by a Vietnam vet and disgraced academic,
Vonnegut brings his indelible 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
protagonist Kilgore trout), part diary of the mid-1990s (starring the
author himself). the result is a perfect fusion of Vonnegut's two
signature genres, the satirical fantasy and the personal essay, and a
literary magician's fond farewell to his readers and his craft. Rounded
out with a selection of short nonfiction pieces intimately related to
these three works, this volume presents the final word from the artist
who the San Francisco Chronicle, reviewing Timequake, called an "old
warrior who will not accept the dehumanizing of politics, the blunting
of conscience, and the glibness of the late-twentieth-century Western
world."
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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
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