The complete Vonnegut interviews, 1973-1983

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a good friend and guest of Walter James Miller, host of WNYC's Reader's Almanac, a show done in conjunction with New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies and later with New York University's Liberal Studies Program. In this blog, we are releasing for the first time since their original broadcast of the complete Vonnegut interviews originally aired on Reader's Almanac in 1973, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1979, and 1983. Vonnegut talks about creativity and about his novels Breakfast of Champions, Slapstick, and Jailbird.

January 28, 1973: Slaughterhouse Five and other works are discussed. (Below)

June 30, 1974: (Top of the page - blue button) Kurt Vonnegut Jr., talks about his latest novel, Breakfast of Champions with host Walter James Miller. Vonnegut describes it as a new version of the Book of Job and advances a theory first laid out in Slaughterhouse Five. He relates a story about the war writer James Jones, who called Hemingway a "day-tripper" and reportedly never wanted to meet him despite his publisher's urging. Vonnegut goes on to say authors are myth-makers who can make language grow, a position that came out of a meeting with a Polish writer. Miller and Vonnegut talk of dictionaries, eternity, the limitations of men's minds, and some of Vonnegut's more existential perspectives on life. 

October 25, 1976: (below) Kurt Vonnegut Jr., is caught at an interesting moment in his career and acquits himself with his usual mix of wit and profundity. Host Walter James Miller invites the novelist to respond to those critics who have panned his latest novel, Slapstick. Vonnegut reveals that he is 'an avowed Jungian,' that he used Dr. Spock as a model for a major character, and many other interesting facts about himself and his friend Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22.

May 1, 1978: Vonnegut and L.J. Davis discuss with Walter James Miller the relation between an artist's creativity and his/her participation in public life. They comment on Vonnegut's appearances at West Point and the Library of Congress. Some writers just don't speak well and Vonnegut says it's not hard for him since he had political ambitions in junior high school. There's also reference to Fran Liebowitz's notion that writers should go on strike.

October 1, 1979: Vonnegut discusses his novel Jailbird. James Walter Miller describes it as "the sardonic tale about the fate of idealism in a world of power and chance...the novel delivers some very deft indictments; indictments of our unacknowledged class warfare, for example, and [of] Keynesian economics as a Ponzi scheme. . . Jailbird signals...a shift in Vonnegut's views towards political activism." Students of American history will find it fascinating.

January 2, 1983 Vonnegut and Miller talk about Dead Eye Dick.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was a long-time supporter of WNYC. He also did a brief stint as WNYC's Reporter On the Afterlife and published a compilation of those reports in a small volume called, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian. The book too helped to support the station in its transition from city ownership to an independent non-profit organization.

Special thanks to Mary Hume, Donald Farber, and Ana Maria Allessi at Harper Collins for making the release of these broadcasts possible.