Kilgore Trout

Kilgore, the primary protagonist of the novel, is a widely published science fiction writer who lives in Cohoes, New York. He was born in 1907 in Bermuda and died in 1981. He was recognized by the American Academy of Arts and Science, and received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1979. At the time of the novel's primary events Kilgore is in his mid sixties. He is described as a curmudgeonly old man who lives alone in a run-down apartment, dresses somewhat shabbily, and, while not entirely filthy, does not pay particular attention to personal hygiene.

During his early life Kilgore assisted his father's study of the fictional Bermudan Ern, a supposedly huge seabird that was severely endangered. During Kilgore's early years the Bermudan Ern became entirely extinct and serves as a minor symbol of the destructivness of modernization. Later in life Kilgore moved to the continental United States and...