In his preface to "Welcome to the Monkey House," a collection of 23 stories and one essay, the author of two such zestful novels as God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and Cat's Cradle again smiles and tells it straight. "The contents of this book," he says with good-natured detachment, "are samples of work I sold in order to finance the writing of the novels. Here one finds the fruits of Free Enterprise." Well, to paraphrase Lamont Cranston, "the seeds of Free Enterprise bear bitter fruit."
A Slick (True) Love Story
From Collier's, a conspicuous failure of our capitalist magazine economy, comes the largest harvest of stories (seven) and the earliest. The oldest saw print in the faraway year of 1950. From Playboy, a heart-warming success story of competition in the marketplace, comes the title story, published this year. Between these dead and thriving examples of what turns a freelancer's heart to pulp, readers will also find represented Esquire, the Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, Venture, Galaxy, and Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine. Plus, as a bonus, "In honor of the marriage that worked I include in this collection a sickeningly slick love story from The Ladies Home Journal, God help us. . . . It describes an afternoon I spent with my wife- to-be. Shame, shame, to have lived scenes from a woman's magazine."
This Vonnegut is obviously a lovable fellow. Moreover, he's right about the story, which is indeed a sickening and slick little nothing about a soldier who goes A.W.O.L. in order--How to say it?--to sweep his girl from the steps of the altar into his strong and loving arms. When not in love, Vonnegut's stories fall into two general classifications. One uses contemporary settings, smoothly and mechanically plotted down to the obligatory twist near the finale and featuring easily recognizable types: the rich, stuffy benefactor of a prep school who tries to wangle the admission of his nice-but-not-too-bright son; a neighbor obsessed with the exciting idea of home decoration and furnishing; a vicious juvenile delinquent saved by a high school band teacher's therapy ("Love yourself, and make your instrument sing about it."). A subcategory of this group, if you're still interested, often takes place on Cape Cod--Vonnegut lives in Barnstable--and describes the encounters of simple folk in unlikely circumstances. A shy clerk comes commandingly alive only as an actor in amateur theatricals. A salesman of storm windows and bathtub enclosures tells tales of a few high and mighty who have been his customers.