Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was the youngest of three children born to Kurt Vonnegut, Sr., an architect, and Edith Lieber, a socialite whose wealthy family owned a successful brewing company. Vonnegut’s family was hit hard during the Great Depression, and after Prohibition effectively shutdown Lieber’s family brewery, they were all but destitute. Vonnegut attended public high school in Indianapolis, and in 1940, began studying biochemistry at Cornell University. Vonnegut had little interest in biochemistry, and his grades were poor, but he did work as a writer and editor for the university’s newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut’s grades eventually landed him on academic probation, and in 1943, he dropped out of Cornell without earning his degree. Considering World War II, Vonnegut assumed he would be drafted, so he proactively joined the United States Army. On Mother’s Day in 1944, after a long struggle with depression, Vonnegut’s mother committed suicide with a combination of alcohol, prescription drugs, and sleeping pills. Vonnegut was soon deployed to Europe and fought in the 1944 Battle of the Bulge, where he was taken as a prison-of-war and sent to a camp in Dresden, Germany. Vonnegut survived the bombing of the city by the Allied forces in 1945 and was soon liberated and sent back to the United States. Later that year, Vonnegut married Jane Marie Cox, his high school sweetheart, and the couple went on to have three children. Vonnegut held several odd jobs, including work as a publicist and a copy writer for an advertising agency, and continued to write in his spare time. He enrolled at the University of Chicago to study Anthropology, but again left before completing his degree after his proposal for his master’s thesis was rejected. Vonnegut published his first novel, Player Piano, in 1952, and while it was received well by critics, it was considered a commercial flop. The novel focuses on factory workers who are replaced by machines, a theme that is also reflected in Breakfast of Champions. In 1958, Vonnegut adopted his sister’s three young sons after she died of cancer, and while he continued to write to support his large family, he did not reach commercial success until the 1969 publication of Slaughterhouse-Five, which skyrocketed Vonnegut to fame. In 1971, Vonnegut and Cox finally divorced after several years of marital strife, and in 1972, Vonnegut’s son suffered a mental breakdown. Vonnegut married his second wife, Jill Krementz, in 1979 and together they adopted a daughter, Lily. In 1984, Vonnegut suffered his own mental breakdown and suicide attempt after struggling with depression and anxiety for decades. Vonnegut continued to write well into his 80s, and in 2007 at the age of 84, he died of a brain injury after falling in his New York City home.