SOURCE: "The Wages of Rage," in Washington Post Book World, Vol. 20, No. 42, October 21, 1990, p. 15.

In the review below, Streitfeld argues that society is the main character in Hocus Pocus and that Vonnegut's sense of dismay with America is the novel's overriding tone.

Sixty-seven years old and recipient of as large a measure of fame as any writer in our time, Kurt Vonnegut still does what he can to enlighten the masses. He meets the public, gives lectures, talks to the press, opens himself up. An incident arising out of one such encounter last year, when Vonnegut spoke at a California university and gave an interview to a reporter for the local paper, bears repeating.

The interview, as printed, was less than laudatory. When Vonnegut saw a copy, he fired off a letter to the reporter, telling her that the story had "a paragraph of pure editorializing suggesting to...