Vonnegut Book Club: God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian
1998 was a strange time in the world: Bill Clinton's presidency was collapsing, Ace of Base could do no wrong, Michael Olowokandi went first in an NBA draft. And strangest of all, Kurt Vonnegut was still a prolific fiction writer after writing his own public funeral. Faced with his own "death", Vonnegut did the cleverest thing imaginable: he became a "reporter from the afterlife" for his favorite local public radio station. Kurt covered the Notable Dead People beat, and revolutionized his own writing in the process, all while maintaining full Dead Writer status in life.
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian is Vonnegut at his most delightfully, lyrically morbid. So join Alex Schmidt and Michael Swaim for a trip through the great writer's love letter to radio, writing, obituaries, and the deceased people we think back on as we chart our own lives.
Cosmologut (0:00:50)
Vonne-Interviews (0:07:00)
Kurt Vonnegut reading Mary Ainsworth interview (0:14:45)
Vognettes (0:26:05)
Kurt Blurt (0:59:50)
Recurring Characters Update (1:05:50)
Kurt Cameo (1:06:00)
VonneWHAT (1:06:45)
Meat (1:09:00)
VonneGRADES (1:15:45)
Related Reading (1:17:20)
To hear Vonnegut's radio pieces in his own words: NYPR Archives & Preservation -- Kurt Vonnegut: WNYC Reporter on the Afterlife
Related Reading:
George Saunders - Lincoln In The Bardo
Harlan Ellison - "S.R.O." (from The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"
