Kurt Vonnegut's corpus literati, particularly Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), influenced me at some unconscious level of my psyche. I do not know how widely read his books are anymore. They were hugely popular among my contemporaries who, like me, came of age in the Sixties, a most peculiar time. I don't think that the young people of today have any idea what it was like to emerge in the Sixties with collegiate hallways plastered with numerous posters of assorted "ad hoc committees" for this and that, but primarily civil rights and peace. I am unaware of any book that adequately depicts that journey but I know, whatever else this book that you presently have in your hands may be, that this book does not address that quest except at a subliminal level. So, caveat emptor.