Kurt Vonnegut and the American Novel

Robert T. Tally Jr. is Associate Professor of English at Texas State University, USA, where he teaches American and world literature.

• Acknowledgements \ Preface \ 1. A Postmodern Iconography \ 2. Misanthropic Humanism: Player Piano and The Sirens of Titan \ 3. Anxiety and the Jargon of Authenticity: Mother Night \ 4. Dialectic of American Enlightenment: Cat's Cradle and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater \ 5. Eternal Returns, or Tralfamadorian Ethics: Slaughterhouse-Five \ 6. Anti-Oedipus of the Heartland: Breakfast of Champions \ 7. Imaginary Communities, or the Ends of the Political: Slapstick and Jailbird \ 8. Abstract Idealism: Deadeye Dick and Bluebeard \ 9. Apocalypse in the Optative Mood: Galápagos \ 10. Twilight of the Icons: Hocus Pocus and Timequake \Bibliography \ Index

Kurt Vonnegut and the American Novel is an exciting re-evaluation of this much overlooked author's work. Tally deftly rereads Vonnegut's novels, situating them in an American tradition of fiction that seeks to make sense of the larger American experience. The book skilfully interweaves a germane selection of literary and critical theory to convincingly argue that Vonnegut should be reassessed as a substantial Modernist rather than Postmodernist writer.