In which he will be mourned.

Vonnegut died at age 84 yesterday.

I’m deeply sad. He will always be one of my favorite authors.

The man was brilliant. His works changed the way I think.

The hours I spent reading Vonnegut were among the best of my reading career. Whenever I finished reading him, I wrote like him for weeks afterward. (Steven King once commented after reading Ellison, in the intro to Stalking The Nightmare, that “Milk takes on the flavor of whatever it’s next to in the fridge,” or something like that. I can’t find the quote. The point being that Vonnegut, like Ellison, is the onion to his milk.) As a case in point my bio, a poor example of the craft, was written after I’d been reading Vonnegut and I can always tell when I re-read it. Ha, ha.

“This is a very bad book you’re writing,” I said to myself.
“I know,” I said.
“You’re afraid you’ll kill yourself the way your mother did,” I said.
“I know,” I said.
– from Breakfast of Champions

Death by Pall-Malls. A “classy way to commit suicide.”

RIP.