Hocus Pocus

by Kurt Vonnegut

Overview

From the New York Times bestselling author of Slaughterhouse-Five comes an irresistible novel that combines “clever wit with keen social observation...[and] re-establishes Mr. Vonnegut’s place as the Mark Twain of our times” (Atlanta Journal & Constitution).

Here is the adventure of Eugene Debs Hartke. He’s a Vietnam veteran, a jazz pianist, a college professor, and a prognosticator of the apocalypse (and other things Earth-shattering). But that’s neither here nor there. Because at Tarkington College—where he teaches—the excrement is about to hit the air-conditioning. And it’s all Eugene’s fault.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425161296
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/01/1997
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	217,777
Product dimensions:	5.21(w) x 7.96(h) x 0.84(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kurt Vonnegut was a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America’s attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him, in the words of The New York Times, as “a true artist” with the publication of 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.

Date of Birth:

November 11, 1922

Date of Death:

April 11, 2007

Place of Birth:

Indianapolis, Indiana

Place of Death:

New York, New York

Education:

Cornell University, 1940-42; Carnegie-Mellon University, 1943; University of Chicago, 1945-47; M.A., 1971

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Hocus Pocus

“Hocus Pocus is the most topical, realistic Vonnegut novel to date...he is a satirist with a heart, a moralist with a whoopee cushion.”—Jay McInerney, The New York Times

“Vonnegut's best novel in years—funny and prophetic, yes, and fabulous too, as cunning as Aesop and as gloomy as Grimm...He's up to something special in Hocus Pocus.”—The Nation

“A king-sized relief valve of comedy. Every bit as humorous as Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions or any of Vonnegut's other comic masterpieces...Vonnegut evokes the cynical chortle, the knowing grin, the inner laughter that soothes our troubled reflections...He's mad as hell and laughing all the way to the apocalypse.”—Playboy

“His voice is one of the most original in popular American fiction...sharp-toothed satire...truly hilarious...Hocus Pocus is ample proof that his literary prestidigitation can still amuse and delight.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Irresistible...Hocus Pocus is vintage Vonnegut, witty, startling, satiric...off-the-wall brilliance. Vonnegut is a true original. Hocus Pocus is not only poignant and provocative, it is outrageous and very funny indeed. If Luck and Time are the two prime movers of the Universe, we are lucky in our time to have a Kurt Vonnegut to prod us, scold us, astonish us, unnerve us, entertain us and make us laugh.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer

From the Publisher

It is the most richly detailed and textured of Mr. Vonnegut's renderings of this particular planet. Unlike many of his major characters, Hartke seems like a real person, and Scipio seems like a real town. Some readers may miss the wilder leaps of imagination and the whimsy, but what is gained is a muscular dignity of voice that only rarely is tendentious. And, like outer space in The Sirens of Titan, Hocus Pocus is not without ''empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.''
— The New York Times

Jay McInerney

While awaiting trial for an initially unspecified crime, Vietnam vet and college professor Eugene Debs Hartke realizes that he has killed exactly as many people as he has had sex with, a coincidence that causes him to doubt his atheism. According to PW , ``The cumulative power of the novel is considerable, revealing Vonnegut at his fanciful and playful best.'' (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly