Kurt Vonnegut: Letters
Edited and with an Introduction by Dan Wakefield
There is a great moment in Dan Wakefield’s introduction to Kurt Vonnegut: Letters, it’s early on when he reveals that Vonnegut loved the underdog, and the reason’s are very clear. #1: Vonnegut was once stuffed in a trashcan by a few of the high school jocks that didn’t like him. #2: Vonnegut’s own father lost everything in the Great Depression, a solid architecture business that helped build a number of prominent buildings in his hometown of Indianapolis.
Vonnegut would go on to write countless novels, and upon receiving criticism he seemed to take it hard, because his early work was generally greeted with bad reviews. One reviewer for the Sunday Times wanted other reviewers to go back and recant their praise, and admit they had been wrong about Vonnegut. Apparently he had not paid his academic dues, according to this one critic.
Vonnegut was a champion of Richard Yates, lent him money, and helped spread the word long before Yates died. It worked, sort of, but Yates left the world underappreciated, to be sure. Regarding Mr. Wakefield’s novel, it was published because of his friendship with Vonnegut. Even when the two were out to dinner in New York City, Vonnegut praised Wakefield’s novel to a fan that only recognized Vonnegut at the table. This theme runs through the collection of letters that comprise this large almost daunting book. Vonnegut was a nice guy who liked to help other people, writers, strangers and the common man.
I love the letter to Sam Lawrence, his publisher at Delacorte, about meeting Updike, and how Mailer and Updike met on a street corner, which must have been interesting, even if it was a fleeting moment. Vonnegut seems star struck just the same.
His letter to Gail Godwin, where he tells her that shyness is a form of hostility, and scolds her for not looking him up when she was in NYC. She was a student of his at the Iowa Workshop, and became a famed novelist. Other letters reveal that he championed Godwin, and tells her that she will be one of the three-hundred writers in America who make a living at it, and that her chances of success are numerous.
I love when he declines Cindy Adams’ request that he be a judge for Miss USA 1976 Beauty Pageant. It makes me wonder who Cindy Adams would pick now, writer-wise if she could. Franzen? Lethem? AM Homes?
The book is a rich chronicle of Vonnegut’s correspondence, and I’m not doing it justice. If you’re a fan then this book is for you. If you only know Kurt Vonnegut from his novels, then you should read his letters too. There is a lot of humor and honest heartfelt emotion in these pages.
