A review by wwatts1734
Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage by Kurt Vonnegut

3.0

This book is a collage of various essays, biographical sketches and interviews with Kurt Vonnegut about his life and career. It was OK. I suppose this book would be more appreciated if I were a Vonnegut fan, but he's not my favorite novelist. I did appreciate his discussion of his military career and life as a POW in Germany during the Dresden fire bombings, which gave him the insight that he used to write his novel "Slaughterhouse Five." After the war he spent a bit of time as a graduate student, and then on to become a professional writer, which, as is the case in far too many literary lives, was really the end of the interesting portion of his life.

I did appreciate that Vonnegut had a sense of humility despite his literary success. At one point he rated his novels with letter grades, like in grade school. Not all of his novels received A+, which is probably more than we could say if someone like Norman Mailer engaged in the same exercise.

Overall, I would recommend this book to fans of Kurt Vonnegut. Aside from fans, this book really does not have much to offer the general writer.