Mother Night

by Kurt Vonnegut

'Black satire of the highest polish' Guardian

Whilst awaiting trial for war crimes in an Israeli prison, Howard W. Campbell Jr sets down his memoirs on an old German typewriter. He has used such a typewriter before, when he worked as a Nazi propagandist under Goebbels. Though that was before he agreed to become a spy for US military. Is Howard guilty? Can a black or white verdict ever be reached in a world that's a gazillion shades of grey?

'After Vonnegut, everything else seems a bit tame' Spectator

• ISBN10: 0586036490
• ISBN13: 9780586036495
• Publish Date: 22 February 1973
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 14 February 1992
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: HarperCollins Distribution Services
• Edition: New edition
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 192
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

Vonnegut warns that this is his only story whose moral he knows: and not that he thinks it’s a marvelous moral, he just happens to know what it is. If anything, the 3 1/2 pages of introduction are worth the entirety of the book.

As much as I love Catch-22 (and I do love it so much), I’m half-wondering how the two haven’t been switched, half-surprised that Mother Night isn’t the same ubiquitous reference as Heller’s masterpiece. It’s certainly less of a labyrinth, even while Vonnegut is at his best, circuitously slicing to the bones of things, and it’s certainly just as haunting.

Someday I might have to choose, but for as long as I can I won’t.