Meet the veritable Vonnegut

And So It Goes

Kurt Vonnegut: A Life

By Charles J. Shields

Henry Holt. 513 pp. $30

Reviewed by Carole Mallory

And So It Goes, Charles J. Shields' riveting biography of Kurt Vonnegut, examines the late author from every side, not all of them flattering.

Although it's an authorized biography, written with Vonnegut's cooperation, Shields doesn't flinch from showing some less attractive character traits that made their way into Vonnegut's fiction - for example, a cruel streak that dated to his childhood and manifested itself throughout much of his work.

"The sense of humor in the Vonnegut house was Schadenfreude . . . taking pleasure in others' misfortunes," writes Shields. "Listening one afternoon to Act 4 of Aida, Kurt Sr. [the novelist's father] remarked in a bemused voice that the lovers sealed in a temple would last a lot longer if they didn't sing so much."

If someone in the family fell down the stairs, another family member would rush to make fun of him. "Likewise, Kurt Jr., for the rest of his life, had an odd (and sometimes disconcerting) habit of laughing suddenly in the middle of describing something unpleasant," Shields writes.

But young Kurt also learned some positive things about humor. He got lessons in "how to be amusing" by listening to Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, and Laurel and Hardy on the radio. "[For] being tutored in the art of creating situations, practicing timing, and delivering punch lines, the perfect tutor was the radio," Shields writes.

Vonnegut's mother was a major influence, though not always in a healthy way. "[Edith Lieber Vonnegut] was lovely, with auburn hair close to red, a complexion like porcelain, and blue-green eyes," according to Shields, whose own writing echoes Vonnegut's - simple and direct sentences, sparse but painterly description.

She was also "addicted to being rich," according to her son. When the family fortune declined, Shields writes, Edith "roamed the house wrapped in a ghostly drug-induced mist."

Vonnegut credited his mother with sparking his interest in literature, but believed he had inherited his father's gift for language. His mother tried and failed to make a living writing for magazines, but Vonnegut believed his father's letters revealed genuine talent as a writer.