Slapstick

Slapstick, or Lonesome No More! is a science fiction novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut. Written in 1976, it depicts Vonnegut’s views of loneliness, both on an individual and social scale. The novel, published in 1976, is presented as a meditation on death, and on Vonnegut’s relationship with his sister Alice. As the author explains in an extended prologue, his sister died of cancer in 1958, a mere two days after her husband had also died in a train accident. Vonnegut adopted and raised two of her three children. The third, Peter, was adopted and raised by relatives in Birmingham Alabama. The novel was written shortly after the death of the author’s uncle, and in fact, the idea for the entire book came to Vonnegut in a dream he had on a plane on the way to the funeral.