About the Author

A pioneer in Vonnegut studies, Jerome Klinkowitz is the author of more than forty books, including novels, collections of short stories, studies of literature, philosophy, art, music, sports, and air combat narratives. He is a professor of English and University Distinguished Scholar at the University of Northern Iowa.

Reviews

No matter how familiar you are with the great author's canon, Kurt Vonnegut's America will have you pulling his books off the shelf again, eager to reread them, armed with new insights that could be provided only by the country's leading Vonnegut scholar. Here Klinkowitz provides a critical context for Vonnegut's output that is informed not only by his biography, but his reaction to, and shaping of, an ever-evolving American culture.--Robert Weide, director of Kurt Vonnegut: American Made and screenwriter of Mother Night

While writing from the perspective of a friend as well as a critic, Klinkowitz makes clear that Vonnegut never took his finger off the American pulse. He became more direct and hyperbolic in his formulations but, as Klinkowitz ably demonstrates, never strayed far from his oft-repeated ethos of artists as the canaries in the coalmine by reminding Americans of our highest ideals and taking us to task for our failures.-- "Bloomsbury Review"