Slaughterhouse Five

Unstuck in time, the hero of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five -- an unforgettable Everyman named Billy Pilgrim -- is never sure what part of his life he is going to have to act in next. Vonnegut's wildly imaginative, witty and affecting novel spins back and forth through time, layering in the elements of Billy's life. Like Vonnegut himself, Billy was a World War II draftee and a prisoner of war in Dresden when the Allies firebombed the city early in 1945. All of these facts are significant, and the novel emerges as a powerful anti-war statement, dominated by the experience of surviving the Dresden nightmare. It is a fractured but transcendent journey toward understanding and acceptance amid the violent certainties of modern life. "Slaughterhouse Five" remains perhaps the signature work in Vonnegut's large and varied catalogue of writings.