Deadeye Dick - by Kurt Vonnegut (Paperback)

About the Book

Amid the horrors of a double murder and a city's annihilation by a neutron bomb, Rudy Waltz, a.k.a. Deadeye Dick, takes the reader on a zany search for absolution and happiness.

Book Synopsis

"The master at his quirky, provocative best."--Cosmopolitan

Deadeye Dick is Kurt Vonnegut's funny, chillingly satirical look at the death of innocence. Amid a true Vonnegutian host of horrors--a double murder, a fatal dose of radioactivity, a decapitation, an annihilation of a city by a neutron bomb--Rudy Waltz, aka Deadeye Dick, takes us along on a zany search for absolution and happiness. Here is a tale of crime and punishment that makes us rethink what we believe . . . and who we say we are.

Praise for Deadeye Dick

"A moving fable . . . Vonnegut, sweet cynic and ugly duckling, continues to write gentle swan songs for our uncivil society."--Playboy

"A brilliantly unconventional novel . . . a must for all Vonnegut fans."--Worcester Sunday Telegram

"Hits the bull's-eye . . . dolefully celebrates the randomness of life, treating private and public disasters with a kind of reckless whimsy. . . . You don't read Kurt Vonnegut for meaning exactly. You read him for the sad-funny attitude of mind, the kind of weirdness that can interpret the world's weirdness."--USA Today

"Vonnegut is beguiling as ever . . . Incredible plot constructions and inventive language continue to leap from his typewriter . . . the humor is natural and inborn; the insight usually purchased by his characters at painfully high cost. Funny how life turns out. Even funnier how Mr. Vonnegut turns life's insanities into funny, profound sense. That takes a master's touch. Mr. Vonnegut still has it."--Kansas City Star

"Playful and imaginative . . . On finishing the novel, the kitchen of your mind is a cleaner and more well-lighted place than it was before."--Houston Chronicle

"Endearing and enchanting . . . a wise and charming book . . . very full of life."--Glamour

Review Quotes

"A moving fable . . . Vonnegut, sweet cynic and ugly duckling, continues to write gentle swan songs for our uncivil society."--Playboy

"The master at his quirky, provocative best."--Cosmopolitan

"A brilliantly unconventional novel . . . a must for all Vonnegut fans."--Worcester Sunday Telegram

"Hits the bull's-eye . . . dolefully celebrates the randomness of life, treating private and public disasters with a kind of reckless whimsy. . . . You don't read Kurt Vonnegut for meaning exactly. You read him for the sad-funny attitude of mind, the kind of weirdness that can interpret the world's weirdness."--USA Today

"Vonnegut is beguiling as ever . . . Incredible plot constructions and inventive language continue to leap from his typewriter . . . the humor is natural and inborn; the insight usually purchased by his characters at painfully high cost. Funny how life turns out. Even funnier how Mr. Vonnegut turns life's insanities into funny, profound sense. That takes a master's touch. Mr. Vonnegut still has it."--Kansas City Star

"Good news for an American public which can pretty obviously use much of Vonnegut's honesty, moral vision, and revulsion for mankind's stupidities it can get. . . . In Deadeye Dick, the Vonnegut trademark with language--the simple, childlike rhetoric which has the effect of unmasking the absurdity of so much that we take for granted--remains in fine working order."--San Diego Union

"Playful and imaginative . . . On finishing the novel, the kitchen of your mind is a cleaner and more well-lighted place than it was before."--Houston Chronicle

"Endearing and enchanting . . . a wise and charming book . . . very full of life."--Glamour

About the Author

Kurt Vonnegut's humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" (The New York Times) with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He was, as Graham Greene declared, "one of the best living American writers." Mr. Vonnegut passed away in April 2007.