Mark Vonnegut

A real disappointment. Over the years, Vonnegut has become less committed to writing, and it shows. A lot of family stuff is alluded to without being detailed and dramatized, leaving huge swaths of emotional territory flat and featureless. Side trips into extracurricular sports, illegal fishing, and casual mycology might be nice for color in a memoir where the characters and through line were better defined, but here they seem like padding. Fragments are frequently placed almost at random, as though they were notes for sections never written. It's a quick and genial read--Vonnegut's good company--but his book lacks force and insight. I seriously doubt someone as smart, capable, and long-lived hasn't peered deeply into himself, but he doesn't really want to tell us about it.… (mere)

Very interesting, sometimes disjointed account of Vonnegut's life with mental illness. You get some family history, some descriptions of what it's like to go crazy, and actually a lot of discussion about the horrible state of medical care in this country. Vonnegut goes to Harvard Medical school after a hospitalization for schizophrenia (although he points out that now he'd be diagnosed as bipolar) and he becomes a top pediatrician. He also deals with alcoholism, his father's death, more breakdowns, and a failed marriage.… (mere)