And So It Goes

And So It Goes (Kurt Vonnegut: A Life) (2011) by Charles J. Shields. Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse Five, makes for an interesting subject for biography. Shields has researched his subject well, and we see, through the eyes of Vonnegut's family, friends and professional associates, a bit of the man he really was. Not surprisingly, the private Vonnegut was not the warm, kind and loving narrator of his books. He was a serial womanizer and something of a tyrant to his own family. He had, perhaps, been ruined by his war experiences. Shields also traces the writing of each Vonnegut book and offers up a summary of each of Vonnegut's novels. This biography did not make me want to run out and read all of Vonnegut's books again, but it did make me feel that I knew the real Kurt Vonnegut just a little better. Grade: A