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01
Ex-father-in-law of Geraldo Rivera.
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02
He considered abandoning writing and taking a teaching job, and then Cat’s Cradle became a best-selling novel. He did not abandon writing.
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03
He started writing when he was in his mid-twenties.
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04
Some of his novels were banned and also burned for suspected obscenity.
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05
Kurt Vonnegut appears in numerous teen-themed movies: in Footloose 1984, Kevin Bacon argues the merits of the novel Slaughterhouse-Five with the town minister; in Varsity Blues 1999, James Van Der Beek reads Slaughterhouse-Five instead of his team’s play-book; James Marsden discovers William Sadler’s janitor reading Slaughterhouse-Five in Disturbing Behavior 1998; Can’t Hardly Wait 1998 ends with Ethan Embry going to Chicago for a writing course headed by Kurt Vonnegut.
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06
A socialist, he took political inspiration from fellow Indiana natives Powers Hapgood and Eugene V. Debs.
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07
From September 2000 until his death, he taught advanced writing at Smith College.
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08
He was the father of Lily by his second wife, Jill Krementz. He also had Mark, Edith Edie Vonnegut, and Nanette Nanny Vonnegut with his first wife, Jane Marie Cox. He adopted his sister’s children James, Steven, and Kurt Adams after she died.
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09
He dedicated his novel Slapstick to Arthur Stanley Jefferson and Norvell Hardy, two angels of my time Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
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10
He graduated from Cornell University with a degree in chemistry, and then he joined the U.S. Army during World War Two. His subsequent career at his alma mater was cut short by his enlistment. Compounding the pain of the necessary scaleback on his academic career was his mother’s suicide, which occurred just before he left for Germany. On December 22, 1944, he was captured during the Battle of the Bulge while a battalion scout with the 106th Infantry Division. On May 22, 1945, he was released to return to the U.S., where he was awarded the Purple Heart. After his return and recovery, he recalled how he was imprisoned in a POW camp in Dresden, Germany. He also recalled that the firebombing of Dresden occurred while he was there, and all of his wartime experiences and recollections became the basis for his novel Slaughterhouse-Five. He resumed his academic career, earning an MA from University of Chicago.
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11
He was the senior editor of and columnist at In These Times magazine.
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12
There is a Creepypasta urban myth which corresponds to his compilation Welcome to the Monkey House.
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13
He championed the play Opportunities in Zero Gravity, which was written by Stephen Geller screenwriter of Slaughterhouse-Five 1972 and Kae Geller Mankovich.
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14
Both of his parents were of German descent.
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15
He was the younger brother of Bernard Vonnegut.
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16
His parents owned a hardware store in Indianapolis, Indiana.
