Summary

In Chapter 15, Christine returned to the Slaughterhouse Five, noting that she was very much like the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, who was “unstuck in time” (227). She also noted that the novel opened with Vonnegut as the apparent protagonist, only to introduce Billy Pilgrim. Christine wrote that the “protagonist in my own story also changed” (227). She wrote at length about the long-term effects of trauma and the triggers – that every headache would make her double check that she was not having a stroke or that the sound of a breast pump reminded her of the “ceaseless cycle of new motherhood” (228). She initially tried to distance herself from the trauma but discovered that did not work. Instead, she learned to use it. She recounted many triggers, including the sound of a Honda engine because her father followed her to and from school and she felt she...