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Kurt Vonnegut Revealed 20 Surprising Facts You Didn’t Know

The 20th century stands as a remarkable era in literary history. It birthed a multitude of iconic authors whose works continue to resonate with readers across generations.

Among these literary geniuses, Kurt Vonnegut emerges as a prominent figure, firmly established among the best of his time. Born in a period of great upheaval, Vonnegut’s life journey is a testament to resilience.

From enduring personal hardships to defying his own anti-war convictions by participating in World War II, Vonnegut’s life is as exciting as his novels were if not more so.

This article will delve into the life of this great author, highlighting some intriguing facts about his very eventful life. Enjoy!

1. Both His Parents Were Of German Descent

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Kurt Vonnegut was born on November 11th, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana. His parents were Kurt Vonnegut Sr., an architect, and Edith Lieber Vonnegut.

Both his parents were German immigrants who settled in the United States in the mid-19th century. As the youngest child, he had two older siblings, Bernard (born 1914) and Alice (born 1917).

While his parents were fluent German speakers, they had to drop and abandon their German culture due to the stigma against Germans following World War I.

Here are some facts about Germany!

2. His Father Was A Successful Architect and His Mother Came From A Wealthy Family

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The Vonnegut family was wealthy this mostly coming from Kurt鈥檚 great grandfather who had started the Vonnegut Hardware Company. Kurt鈥檚 father and grandfather Bernard, were both renowned architects.

See 10 different types of architects here!

They are credited with designing such buildings as Das Deutsche Haus (now called “The Athen忙um”). The building is a famous figure in Indiana, and today is the current headquarters of the Bell Telephone Company.

Here are some facts about Alexander Graham Bell

Another company they designed is the Fletcher Trust Building, also in Indiana. Kurt鈥檚 mother, on the other hand, came from one of the wealthiest families in the city. The Liebers’ owned a very successful brewery.

3. Kurt Vonnegut鈥檚 Life Was Affected Severely by The Great Depression

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The Great Depression was probably the single worst economic downturn in American history, lasting from 1929 to 1939. It had a profound impact on the lives of millions of people and the Vonnegut鈥檚 history is a testament to this.

Due to the effects of the Great Depression, people could not afford to build and therefore the architecture firm took a serious financial hit. The family鈥檚 finances also took a hit since Lieber鈥檚 brewery had been shut down in 1921 following prohibition.

The financial strains led to Kurt being enrolled in public schools, unlike his siblings who completed both primary and secondary levels in private institutions. His parents were also significantly affected, with his father allegedly withdrawing from reality and becoming a 鈥渄reamy artist鈥�.

His mother, on the other hand, grew to hate her husband, becoming bitter and depressed.

Here are 10 facts about the Great Depression!

4. Began Writing in High School for The School Newspaper

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In 1936, Vonnegut enrolled at Shortridge High School. He was an avid student who took music, playing the clarinet in the school band.

Besides music, Vonnegut also became the co-editor of the school newspaper鈥檚 Tuesday edition known as the Echo. The other co-editor was the infamous Madelyn Pugh, recognized as the writer of the 1950s classic I Love Lucy TV series.

Vonnegut would later admit that he found writing during his tenure with the Echo “fun and easy”. It was here that he began writing for a large audience.

He said, “It just turned out that I could write better than a lot of other people. Each person has something he can do easily and can’t imagine why everybody else has so much trouble doing it.”

5. Majored in Biochemistry At Cornell

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After 4 years at Shortridge High School, Vonnegut joined Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Ideally, he would have preferred to become an architect like his father or study humanities.

However, His father who had struggled as an architect, advised him to take a “useful” discipline. Therefore, Vonnegut decided to major in biochemistry but had little proficiency in the discipline and did not enjoy it.

However, he did join the university’s independent newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun. He started off as a staff writer and then became an editor.

6. He Dropped Out Of Cornell And Enlisted Into The Army in 1942

While a writer for The Cornell Daily Sun, Kurt penned a piece titled “Well All Right” where he argued against the US鈥檚 intervention in World War II.

This piece, which was not received well, coupled with his poor grades, led to him being put on academic probation and losing his position as a member of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in May 1942.

He went on to drop out from Cornell the following January and since he had left the ROTC, he faced being drafted into the war. However, Kurt went on to enlist in the army himself in March 1943.

He reported to Fort Bragg in North Carolina for basic training and was later ordered to an infantry battalion at Camp Atterbury, south of Indianapolis.

7. His Mother Committed Suicide On Mother鈥檚 Day Right Before He Deployed To Europe

While a Camp Atterbury, Jurt Vonnegut lived so close to his home that he was able to go home frequently more so during weekends. On May 14th, 1944, on Mother鈥檚 Day, Vonnegut returned home on leave only to find his mother had died.

She had committed suicide the previous night by overdosing on sleeping pills. It was known that Edith Vonnegut (Kurt鈥檚 mother), had been depressed following the family’s loss of wealth and status as well as Kurt鈥檚 impending deployment.

鈥淚 only wish she鈥檇 lived to see [my writing career]. I only wish she鈥檇 lived to see all her grandchildren,鈥� he said.

8. Kurt Vonnegut Was A Prisoner Of War

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About three months after the passing of his mother, Vonnegut was sent to Europe with the 106th Infantry Division as a scout. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

The inexperienced 106th Infantry Division was overrun by the Germans and over 500 were killed while over 6,000, including Vonnegut, were captured on December 22nd and taken to Dresden.

In Dresden, he was forced to work in a malt-syrup factory and slept in a subterranean slaughterhouse. In February 1945, Dresden was attacked and bombed with tens of thousands of civilians killed. 鈥淭hey burnt the whole damn town down,” he would say of the attack.

He was able to return to the United States in 1945 and was soon awarded a 鈥減urple heart.鈥� “I myself was awarded my country’s second-lowest decoration, a Purple Heart for frostbite,” he remarked. He was discharged from the US Army and returned to Indianapolis.

Read some gruesome facts about World War II concentration camps!

9. He Had Met His Wife in Kindergarten

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After returning to the United States, Kurt, now 22, married his high school sweetheart, Jane Marie Cox whom he had met in kindergarten while they were children.

The two moved to Chicago and Vonnegut enrolled in the University of Chicago to study anthropology. His enrollment was thanks to the G.I. Bill which provided such benefits to World War II veterans.

His wife Jane, on the other hand, accepted a scholarship at the university to study Russian literature. The two had three children together, Nanette, Mark, and Edith.

10. He Held A Series Of Odd Jobs After The War

After returning from World War II, Kurt Vonnegut held several jobs before becoming a successful writer. In 1947, Vonnegut began working in public relations for General Electric before becoming a technical writer later.

He also held several other jobs including a public relations man for a plastics company and an advertising copywriter. He also served as a firefighter briefly in New York and firefighting would become a common feature in his novels.

He also wrote articles and short stories for magazines such as Collier鈥榮 and The Saturday Evening Post.

11. Vonnegut Published His First Novel, Player Piano, in 1952

In 1952, Kurt Vonnegut published his first of many novels via American publisher Scribner鈥檚. The novel is titled Player Piano and is set in a post-Third World War world where factory workers have been replaced by machines.

The novel is based on his experiences working at GE. In Player Piano, he parodies the desire to ascend the corporate ladder, which is rapidly fading as automation spreads and eliminates jobs for even CEOs.

12. He Adopted His Sister鈥檚 Three Kids

In 1958, Kurt sadly lost his sister Alice (born 1917) to cancer. Two days prior to her death, her husband, James Carmalt Adams, had died in a train accident.

Vonnegut recognized that the Adams children would need a loving home and while he and his wife, Jane, already had three children of their own, they agreed to adopt the Adams children.

They were James, Steven, and Kurt Adams. The Adams children lived with the Vonneguts for the rest of their childhood.

They all went on to have successful lives. James became a doctor, Steven became a lawyer, and Kurt became a writer.

13. He Considered Abandoning His Writing Career in the 1960s

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After the success of Player Piano, Kurt was contractually obligated to produce a second novel. However, he found it difficult to complete and instead opted to write and sell short stories to various magazines.

In 1959 he would publish The Sirens of Titan, and Mother Night in 1961. These two were not particularly successful as they were considered very similar to Player Piano.

However, in 1963, “Vonnegut hit full stride for the first time,” with Cat鈥檚 Cradle. He would follow it up with God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1964).

Seeing as how his books struggled early on, Vonnegut would later reveal that in the mid-1960s he considered quitting writing. Well, this was before he was offered a job as a teacher at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

He would say the job offer 鈥渞escued a drowning man.鈥� And were all grateful he was rescued as his best work was yet to be released.

14. He Published Arguably His Best Work In 1969

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Around 1965, Vonnegut was offered a teaching job at the writer’s workshop at the University of Iowa. After two years, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship which is a grant that allowed him to travel to Germany for research.

Vonnegut then used the funds to travel to Eastern Europe, including Dresden. The visits allowed him to complete a book he had been writing since he left the Army.

In 1969, the world was introduced to Slaughterhouse-Five, a novel about war experiences that rocketed Vonnegut to stardom.

15. Slaughterhouse-Five Mirrors Many of His War Experiences

Slaughterhouse-Five is a semi-autobiographical novel that tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, a man who travels through time and witnesses the firebombing of Dresden. The novel is told in an irregular and non-linear fashion, and it often juxtaposes the horrors of war with the absurdities of everyday life.

Some of the story鈥檚 biggest twists and climaxes are revealed in the book鈥檚 first pages yet somehow Vonnegut is able to keep the reader鈥檚 attention for the entirety of the novel.

He received high praise and the novel received very positive reviews. Michael Crichton writing in The New Republic said, “he writes about the most excruciatingly painful things鈥� No one else writes books on these subjects; they are inaccessible to normal novelists.”

16. Vonnegut Got His Degree 25 Years After Leaving the University of Chicago

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While at the University of Chicago, Vonnegut completed his undergraduate studies avidly. However, he was forced to leave the university without his degree.

This was because he failed to write a dissertation, or rather what he wrote was not approved. He wrote on several topics including the Ghost Dance and Cubist movements as well as the shapes of stories which were all rejected.

However, 25 years later, he would receive his graduate degree in anthropology. This was after the university accepted his 1963 novel, Cat鈥檚 Cradle as his master’s thesis.

Cat’s Cradle is a satirical science fiction novel that explores and satirizes issues of science, technology, the purpose of religion, and the arms race, often through the use of morbid humor.

17. He Tried To Commit Suicide

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) made Vonnegut a best-selling author and brought him some fame and considerable wealth. However, in the midst of all this success, he struggled with depression mostly because of the troubles in his personal life.

In 1971, he and his first wife, Jane Marie Cox, separated, and for some time he lived alone in New York City. His son was diagnosed with schizophrenia (though it was actually probably bipolar disorder) and he had trouble writing too.

While he did marry his second wife in 1979 with whom he adopted a daughter, his depression only got worse. So much so that he attempted (albeit unsuccessfully) to commit suicide in 1984.

He would write about this experience in his 1991 collection of essays titled Fates Worse Than Death.

18. Slaughterhouse-Five is still banned in some schools

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Slaughterhouse-Five is without doubt Vonnegut鈥檚 most famous work and also his most controversial. Published in 1969, the book continues to be a cause for debates over its content more than 50 years later.

Since its publication, the novel has been banned and challenged numerous times. The reasons for this often-included concerns about the novel’s violence, obscenity, and lack of patriotism.

It is rated as one of the most banned books of the 21st century and has been removed from several schools all over the USA. In 1973, Drake High School in Minot, North Dakota banned and burned copies of the book.

Vonnegut wrote to the school arguing that the novel was “an anti-war book, and so it is against violence.” In 2011, the novel was removed from the curriculum at Republic High School in Missouri after a parent complained about its content.

In 2019, the novel was banned from the libraries of several school districts in Florida. It has also been challenged in Howell, Michigan, New York, and Ohio.

19. His Daughter Met the Cape Cod Cannibal

The Cape Cod Cannibal was the nickname given to Antone “Tony” Costa. He was a serial killer who murdered and dismembered four women in and around the town of Truro, Massachusetts, in the late 1960s.

Vonnegut came out and openly disclosed that his daughter, Edith, had met Tony Costa. According to him, this happened 鈥渄uring a crazy summer she spent on her own in Provincetown, [Massachusetts], knew him well enough to receive and decline an invitation he evidently extended to many girls: 鈥楥ome and see my marijuana patch.鈥欌��

The two met as Costa was working as a handyman at the house where Edith was staying. The alleged 鈥渕arijuana patch鈥� was the illicit garden where Costa buried the bodies of his victims.

After Costa was arrested for the murders in 1969, Vonnegut wrote about the case for LIFE magazine. Edith would write about the ordeal herself, in her book “The Cape Cod Cannibal and Me.”

In the book, Edith describes how she met Costa, and how she came to terms with the fact that he was a murderer.

20. He Ranked His Novels Himself

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Do you know that old saying 鈥淒on鈥檛 blow your own horn鈥�? Well, Vonnegut either didn鈥檛 know of it or blatantly disregarded it. However, to be fair to him, he was modest, to say the least in the evaluation of his books.

In an interview with Charlie Rose, discussed how he graded his books. In 1981, he wrote about his grading system in Palm Sunday, a collection of his works.

He gave himself an A+ for his writing in Cat鈥檚 Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five but wasn鈥檛 as generous with Happy Birthday, Wanda June, or Slapstick, which both received Ds.

Kurt Vonnegut鈥檚 life was filled with moments of both great triumph and equally if not more severe adversities. His journey from personal struggles to literary success reflects the resilience of the human spirit and the power of artistic expression.

His works to this day remain a source of enlightenment and entertainment, continuing to resonate with readers and spark conversations about the human experience. It is in these works that his legacy has been and will be preserved for generations to come.

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