God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian [Hardcover]

Kurt Vonnegut (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 7, 1999

From Slapstick's "Turkey Farm" to Slaughterhouse-Five's eternity in a Tralfamadorean zoo cage with Montana Wildhack, the question of the afterlife never left Kurt Vonnegut's mind. In God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian, Vonnegut skips back and forth between life and the Afterlife as if the difference between them were rather slight. In thirty odd "interviews," Vonnegut trips down "the blue tunnel to the pearly gates" in the guise of a roving reporter for public radio, conducting interviews: with Salvatore Biagini, a retired construction worker who died of a heart attack while rescuing his schnauzer from a pit bull, with John Brown, still smoldering 140 years after his death by hanging, with William Shakespeare, who rubs Vonnegut the wrong way, and with socialist and labor leader Eugene Victor Debs, one of Vonnegut's personal heroes.
What began as a series of ninety-second radio interludes for WNYC, New York City's public radio station, evolved into this provocative collection of musings about who and what we live for, and how much it all matters in the end. From the original portrait by his friend Jules Feiffer that graces the cover, to a final entry from Kilgore Trout, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian remains a joy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As a "reporter on the afterlife," Kurt Vonnegut bravely allows himself to be strapped to a gurney by his friend Jack Kevorkian and dispatched--round-trip--to the Pearly Gates. Or at least that's what he claims in the introduction to this series of brief pieces originally read as 90-second interludes on WNYC, Manhattan's public radio station. Revised and rewritten for this slim volume, Vonnegut's "interviews" range from the gossamer-slight to the deliciously barbed. Among the dead people he is privileged to talk to are Salvatore Biagini, a retired construction worker who died of a heart attack while rescuing his schnauzer from a pit bull; John Brown, still smoldering 140 years after his death by hanging; William Shakespeare, who spouts quotations and rubs Vonnegut the wrong way; and one of Vonnegut's own personal heroes, socialist and labor leader Eugene Victor Debs. The tables are turned on Vonnegut when he runs into Sir Isaac Newton, who is lurking near the Heaven end of the "blue tunnel" of the Afterlife. Newton, tireless in his quest for knowledge, wants to find out what the tunnel is made of, and he takes over the interview, besieging Vonnegut with questions. Unfazed, the writer moves on, looking up Martin Luther King's assassin, James Earl Ray, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. It is only when Dr. Kevorkian is inconveniently convicted for murder that Vonnegut is forced to desist. This may be Vonnegut (or his publishers) scraping the bottom of the barrel, but no matter: there are few writers whose scrapings we'd rather have. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

...an odd little volume that gathers 21 koanlike pieces... -- The New York Times Book Review, David L. Ulin

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 78 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press; First Edition edition (December 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583220208
• ISBN-13: 978-1583220207
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #788,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922. He studied at the universities of Chicago and Tennessee and later began to write short stories for magazines. His first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1951 and since then he has written many novels, among them: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Mother Night (1961), Cat's Cradle (1963), God Bless You Mr Rosewater (1964), Welcome to the Monkey House; a collection of short stories (1968), Breakfast of Champions (1973), Slapstick, or Lonesome No More (1976), Jailbird (1979), Deadeye Dick (1982), Galapagos (1985), Bluebeard (1988) and Hocus Pocus (1990). During the Second World War he was held prisoner in Germany and was present at the bombing of Dresden, an experience which provided the setting for his most famous work to date, Slaughterhouse Five (1969). He has also published a volume of autobiography entitled Palm Sunday (1981) and a collection of essays and speeches, Fates Worse Than Death (1991).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not quite Vonnegut at his prime, but still worth the read., December 19, 1999

By 

Nicholas - See all my reviews

This review is from: God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (Hardcover)

For those of you who are Vonnegut fanatics, this is a book that you must have, but on the same token you may be slightly disappointed. An interesting and funny plot, placing Kurt Vonnegut in the hands of Dr. Kevorkian, but that may be one of the few humorous antics of the book.

Vonnegut's visits with the other side are short, often leaving the reader wanting to know just a little bit more. He uses an interesting approach, interviewing a wide variety of people...from famous thinkers to the typical Joe, reminding us that we much too often overlook the significance of every life.

Vonnegut's liberal-self shines through when he jokes around about the death penalty and the Texas facility that him and Jack must evacuate several times so that it may be put to "full" use. And for history buffs, his interview with Eugene V. Debs will keep you laughing. :)

This work is a short and fast read, which will start the reader off laughing. (The introduction is typical Vonnegut satire.) Not to be compared (by any means) to his major works such as Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five, or Mother Night, but nonetheless worth the read.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Short, but Meaningful, April 28, 2000

By 

Craig VanDerAa (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (Hardcover)

You know why I'm giving this book a '4'? Because it's not a masterpiece, but it IS unique and it stuck with me more than any book I've read in the past couple of years. Yes it's short book, but I have come to realize that not all great stories need to be long, drawn-out novels filled with plot twists and dozens of interesting characters. Vonnegut gets quickly to the point here. He usually does. I think that's one of his greatest strengths as an author. And what a great concept! It is collection of interviews with people who have passed away. As the story goes, Vonnegut has worked a deal with Jack Kevorkian whereby he is able to go to the pearly gates, interview someone, and then come back before it's too late. The resulting interviews with both famous and non-famous people are interesting, funny, sad, and, most of all, thought provoking. So if you want a quick read that gives you all of those emotions, get it.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Vonnegut, January 8, 2000

By 

RSRitsma - See all my reviews

This review is from: God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (Hardcover)

Old Kurt has done it again...Further pushing back the walls of reality to make room for his outlandish yet all too believable fiction. In "God Bless You, Dr Kevorkian" Vonnegut presents written transcripts from the post-mortem interviews he's conducted with dead celebrities(both well known and obscure) through controlled near death experiences courtesy of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. It is through these fictional interviews that Vonnegut gives his take on life, death, and the human experience and ends up at his familiar refrain: Life may be meaningless--but at least it's beautiful. This is vintage Vonnegut--A gospel of the laughable irony of human existence. This book was a joy to read.