books
look at the birdie unpublished short fiction
look at the birdie is a collection of fourteen previously unpublished short stories from one of the most original writers in all of american fiction . in this series of perfectly rendered vignettes written just as he was starting to find his comic voice kurt vonnegut paints a warm wise and funny portrait of life in post world war ii america a world where squabbling couples high school geniuses misfit office workers and small town lotharios struggle to adapt to changing technology moral ambiguity and unprecedented affluence . br here are tales both cautionary and hopeful each brimming with vonneguts trademark humor and profound humanism . a family learns the downside of confiding their deepest secrets into a magical invention . a man finds himself in a kafkaesque world of trouble after he runs afoul of the shady underworld boss who calls the shots in an upstate new york town . a quack psychiatrist turned murder counselor concocts a novel new outlet for his paranoid patients . while these stories reflect the anxieties of the postwar era that vonnegut was so adept at capturing and provide insight into the development of his early style collectively they have a timeless quality that makes them just as relevant today as when they were written . its impossible to imagine any of these pieces flowing from the pen of another writer ; each in its own way is unmistakably quintessentially vonnegut . br featuring a foreword by author and longtime vonnegut confidant sidney offit and illustrated with vonnegut s characteristically insouciant line drawings look at the birdie is an unexpected gift for readers who thought his unique voice had been stilled forever and serves as a terrific introduction to his short fiction for anyone who has yet to experience his genius . br read hello red and the petrified ants two of the stories from the collection as single story e books before look at the birdie goes on sale . available wherever e books are sold .
hardcover delacorte press 2009 isbn13 9780385343718 isbn10 038534371x
abridged n isbn 13 9780385343718 number in series 1 number of pages 251 publisher random house inc release date 1255996800000