Jailbird Summary
Kurt Vonnegut

Jailbird Summary

This thematically and narratively complex book tells the life story of Walter Starbuck, ex-socialist, ex-capitalist, and ex-con. Moving fluidly back and forth between past and present, incident and insight, irony and irony, the novel explores themes relating to the tension between capitalism and communism, layers of meaning inherent in layers of identity, fact, and fiction, and the interconnectedness of all things.

The novel begins with a lengthy prologue written in the character of the author and ostensibly a summary of the novel's historical origins. While some elements of what is described here are obviously real, others are just as obviously fictionalized, giving the early (and clear) sense that the lines between what is fiction and what is fact are, in this book at least, quite blurred.

The narrative proper begins with the protagonist, the elderly Walter Starbuck, in prison. As he waits for the guard to conduct him... View more of the Jailbird Summary