The Writer's Crusade

August 15, 2021
A fresh look at Kurt Vonnegut's classic 1969 novel through the lens of PTSD. During World War II, Vonnegut was a prisoner of war and witness to the bombing of Dresden, which killed an estimated 25,000 civilians. That experience fueled one of his best-loved novels, which blended science fiction with a more conventional tale of war trauma. In interviews, the author could be hard to pin down about the book, sometimes underplaying the impact of his war experiences, sometimes snarky, sometimes openly candid about it. "In Dresden I saw a mountain of dead people," he once said. "And that makes you thoughtful." Veteran magazine journalist Roston attempts to engage with the novel and the author's life to determine if Vonnegut suffered from what we would now call PTSD. He recognizes this as something of a fool's errand; Vonnegut's son Mark believes he did, but the novel resists such simple interpretation, being so multivalent and written over nearly a quarter-century. Still, Roston's efforts are fruitful. He explores how the nature of war trauma has changed in the past century, with special attention to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who've channeled their experiences into fiction. Matthew Mellina, one writer/vet with PTSD, was so struck by Vonnegut's conceit of the novel's hero, Billy Pilgrim, being "unstuck" that he had the word tattooed on his arm. Roston's byways into PTSD history and other writers' work can sometimes draw him a fair distance from Vonnegut, and the book's central question remains unresolved. But he successfully reenergizes a major work from a writer whose star has faded somewhat. New wars, and more recent fiction about them, may have overshadowed Slaughterhouse-Five, but Roston persuasively shows how the novel speaks both to Vonnegut's moment and to our own. A rangy, occasionally rambling portrait of one of our stranger, more enduring war novels.

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August 23, 2021
Kurt Vonnegut’s classic 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five “is the rare, true war story,” according to this colorful debut from journalist Roston. Delving into the personal and creative process that created the novel, Roston explores the extent that Vonnegut’s experiences as a prisoner of war during the bombing of Dresden in WWII affected his life and writing—though Vonnegut denied any lasting traumatic effects, Roston wonders whether Slaughterhouse-Five may point toward undiagnosed PTSD. To that end, he digs through previous drafts of the novel in which Vonnegut worried he was being too “condemning of war,” and recounts anecdotes from those close to Vonnegut, including Bernard O’Hare, a war buddy of Vonnegut’s who’s featured in the first chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five. The work of psychologists, writers, and scholars also help Roston piece together a working definition and history of PTSD to see what it can reveal about the novel and its main character, Billy Pilgrim. Regardless of Vonnegut’s own mental state, Roston writes, “the novel resonates today as a metaphor for PTSD.” While Roston can occasionally go on tangents, his passion for Vonnegut’s writing is contagious. Vonnegut’s fans will find in this survey a fresh take on a classic.