Jailbird

a novel

320 pages

English language

Published Jan. 12, 1999 by Dial Press Trade Paperback.

ISBN:
978-0-385-33390-0
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

(24 reviews)

This wry tale follows bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentiary as Watergate's least known co-conspirator.

19 editions

Review of 'Jailbird' on 'Goodreads'

I always enter a Vonnegut book with a mix of hope and trepidation. He has written two novels I think are hilarious, Cat's Cradle and Slapstick, and some brilliant short stories, but the other books I've read have ranged from mildly interesting Slaughterhouse-Five to wretched (God Bless You Mr. Rosewater), and many I've started and then given up on.

Jailbird falls somewhere between Slaughterhouse-Five and GBYMR in my esteem. It's a short but shambling book with some interesting moments, but there's not much to it. Often it feels like a set of notes for a book Vonnegut was planning to write later on. The lead character isn't especially interesting, and no one he meets is either.

Vonnegut is often interested in the futility of action, but this book feels so futile that it doesn't seem to have been worth starting. At the end, I felt I was left with nothing …

avatar for joergr

rated it

avatar for justephens

rated it

avatar for whohanley

rated it

avatar for StoryInfluxPress

rated it

avatar for stim

rated it

avatar for ianbishop

rated it

avatar for ruxpinread

rated it

avatar for gadabyte

rated it

avatar for dx

rated it

avatar for flimflam

rated it

avatar for LiminalFlares

rated it

avatar for BrerChicken

rated it

avatar for Autolycus

rated it

avatar for WorzelFG

rated it

avatar for ToddSchroth

rated it

avatar for hastur

rated it

avatar for joergr

rated it

avatar for gwcoffey

rated it

avatar for periwinkleReads

rated it

avatar for eh

rated it

avatar for jjackunrau

rated it

avatar for xianny

rated it

avatar for Dezik

rated it

Subjects

  • Watergate Affair, 1972-1974 -- Fiction
  • Ex-convicts -- Fiction

Lists