(Wakefield, Dan) A longtime friend of Kurt Vonnegut’s, Dan Wakefield edited and introduced Kurt Vonnegut: Letters, and is the author of the memoirs New York in the Fifties and Returning: A Spiritual Journey, and the novel, Going All the Way, which was made into a movie starring Ben Affleck. Wakefield is co-editor (with Jerome Klinkowitz) of Kurt Vonnegut: Complete Stories (Seven Stories Press). Vonnegut published only about half of the stories he wrote, his agent telling him in 1958 upon the rejection of a particularly strong story, “Save it for the collection of your works which will be published someday when you become famous. Which may take a little time.” Here for the first time is the complete short fiction of one of the 20th century’s greatest writers. Organized thematically, these 97 stories were written over a lifetime, from 1941 to 2007, and include those published during Vonnegut’s lifetime in magazines and collected in Welcome to the Monkey House, Bagombo Snuff Box, and other books; those published posthumously; and, for the first time, five previously unpublished stories as well as a handful of others that were published online only and read by few. The Complete Stories puts Vonnegut’s great wit, humor, and humanity on full display.
