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The first and only YA biography of the great American novelist and humanist and author of such classics as “Mr. Wakefield’s account of Vonnegut’s life is;funny and tender, the kind of book that will leave you bruised and happy and reverberating a little, as if you are a piano that someone has just finished playing.” --Meghan Cox Gurdon, Kurt Vonnegut, author of Dan Wakefield, a friend and mentee of Vonnegut''s for decades and a fellow Hoosier, distills the facts including Kurt''s novels, essays, interviews, letters and personal experiences, into a beautiful telling of the making of a writer. Using the second person "You," it is as though Wakefield is a friend walking through Kurt''s life alongside him, a guide for readers to his extraordinary life. The book also includes original art by Vonnegut and family photographs. Here is an American life, a burgeoning artist''s life to inspire anyone who has read Vonnegut''s work or who themselves aspire to write.
About the author
Dan Wakefield is a novelist, journalist, and screenwriter. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, he was an Eagle Scout and began his writing career as a columnist of his high school newspaper, The Shortridge Daily Echo. Shortridge High was also the school Kurt Vonnegut had graduated from a few years earlier. They didn't know each other at the time, but eventually they met and became lifelong friends.
Dan has served as a sports correspondent and writer for a number of magazines and newspapers including Harpers, Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times Magazine. His best-selling novels Going All The Way and Starting Over were made into feature films, and a documentary film was produced of his memoir New York in the Fifties. He splits his time between Indianapolis IN and Miami FL.