Kurt Vonnegut Remembered is an odd book, one that is difficult to classify. If I were forced to name its genre, I would suggest “biographical collage,” partly in reference to Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s (1922–2007) Palm Sunday (1981) and Fates Worse Than Death (1991), which he referred to as autobiographical collages. But it is also clear from his introduction that editor Jim O'Loughlin intends for this volume to serve as a biography, more specifically, as a counterbiography to Charles Shields's And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut, A Life (2011), which O'Loughlin among others felt unfairly, if entirely accurately (that is, no one denied any of the facts presented), depicted Vonnegut in a less than favorable light. O'Loughlin expresses his hope that “the reminiscences in the latter part of this volume will serve as a corrective to Shields's unremittingly dismal account of Vonnegut's later years” (5). By referring to Shields's account, rather than Vonnegut's final years, as “dismal,” O'Loughlin underscores the degree to which Kurt Vonnegut Remembered is the result of a dissatisfaction with Shields, who is nonetheless included among the memoirists in the volume, specifically recalling the first time he met Vonnegut in person. Although he briefly sketches out a biographical narrative in the introduction and provides a helpful timeline of key events in Vonnegut's life, O'Loughlin assumes the role here not so much of a biographer or scholar but of a curator of remembrances.The problem with this approach should be evident even before one delves into the actual contents of the book. The proper response to a biography that is deemed flawed would be to research and write another biography, thereby correcting the misinterpretations or biased representations by supplying better evidence. However, to merely allow the subject's friends to say nice things about him, and worse, to cherry-pick among the things that those friends have said to ensure that the narrative yields the desired outcome, is not to correct the historical record so much as to demonstrate potentially unprofessional conduct and unethical scholarship—or, at least, it would if this were in any way a scholarly work. Happily, it is not. Kurt Vonnegut Remembered is almost exclusively a work of fandom, and it is designed to allow fans—those already in love with the Vonnegut they have always pictured—to encounter others selectively confirming that their beloved picture is well lit and properly framed. Because this book is made up almost entirely of previously published materials, the serious scholar and the hardcore fan will likely find nothing new to alter their perception of the author's life or work, but the casual fan may well enjoy these twice-told anecdotes and fond reminiscences.In any case, this is an impressive biographical collage, containing a wide variety of excerpts from dozens of sources. O'Loughlin has artfully culled through many different publications to find firsthand memories of Vonnegut by those who knew him, ranging from high school classmates and Hollywood notables (Peter Fonda, Robert B. Weide, Michael Moore) to such literary celebrities such as Gail Godwin, Normal Mailer, and John Updike. Some of these memories come from family, such as his daughter Nanette and both of his wives, Jane Vonnegut Yarmolinsky and Jill Krementz. Some come from close friends, such as friend and former lover Loree Rackstraw, his executor and lawyer Don Farber, and the fellow soldier whose name Vonnegut had made famous in Mother Night (1961) and especially Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Bernard V. O'Hare Jr. Some come from those who knew him only fleetingly, although even these provide vivid memories, as when Hamptons-based journalist Dan Rattiner recalls a falling out between him and Vonnegut over his memories of the war (154), a small detail that shows the degree to which, even in the 1990s, Vonnegut despised any accounts of the war that might serve to glorify battle. While there are a few entries from scholars who have authored studies of Vonnegut's work, such as Peter Reed, Jerome Klinkowitz, and Todd Davis, there is little of scholarly or critical value to this book, but neither is that the intent. Scattered memories and impressions of the man, far more than of his work, characterize Kurt Vonnegut Remembered.In the manner of a biography, Kurt Vonnegut Remembered is divided into sections that chronologically cover distinctive periods of Vonnegut's life. O'Loughlin's periodization itself says a lot about the way this biography is conceived, as for instance when a brief, two-year period of Vonnegut's life—the time he spent at the University of Iowa in the mid-1960s—serves as its own section; O'Loughlin concedes that “[t]he sheer quantity of reminiscences from this period may have the effect of over-representing this brief moment in Vonnegut's life” (6), but argues that the Iowa moment is so important for examining who Vonnegut became, since it is there that he completed Slaughterhouse-Five. The six periods into which the remembrances are divided are “Growing Up: 1922–1943,” “From War to the Homefront: 1944–1964,” “The Iowa Years: 1965–1967,” “Literary Celebrity: 1968–1979,” “The Reluctant Guru: 1980–1997,” and “‘I Never Expected to Live This Long’: 1998–2007.” These titles tell a sort of life story in their own right, of course, as each period establishes a distinct context in which a Vonnegutian persona emerges and develops.By far the shortest section is the first, comprising only four pages, a fact that may reveal a biographer's choice to deemphasize childhood and its influence on the subject's life and work even though Vonnegut himself in his prefaces and other nonfiction frequently discussed the significance of Indianapolis, Shortridge High School, and his extended family relationships while growing up in Indiana. (By contrast, Shields's biography devotes about fifty pages, or roughly 12 percent of the total, to this period.) Needless to say, perhaps, little is revealed here, although there is a funny anecdote about how a high-school-aged Vonnegut faked a funeral procession in order to get “good parking places” for an “important” basketball game (12). Many of the facts or events that more psychologically oriented chroniclers might have mentioned, such as the emotionally distant father, the suicidal mother, the brilliant but disdainful big brother, the beloved and protective sister, and so on (all of which are well known from Vonnegut's own writings), do not really appear at all.Given the extraordinary significance Vonnegut's military experience in World War II would have on his career and reputation, particularly considering that Slaughterhouse-Five and its autobiographical aspects may be what Vonnegut is still most famous for, readers may be surprised to find that only seven pages of part 2, “From War to the Homefront,” are devoted to war memories. By far the longest selection in this part—and in the entirely of Kurt Vonnegut Remembered, in fact—is an excerpt from the memoir (Angels Without Wings [1987]) by Vonnegut's first wife, Jane, discussing the tragic and momentous occasion when Vonnegut's sister and her husband died within three days of each other in 1958, and Kurt and Jane, already with three children of their own, adopted three of Alice's children. This is a critical moment in Vonnegut's biography, as the commercially stable but not entirely successful writer of short stories for glossy magazines now had a very large family to support. The section ends with daughter Nanette's memories of the struggles her father had had in trying to write his big book, that is, Slaughterhouse-Five, and how once it was finished, “aliens came and took my father away from me in 1969, to celebrity and New York” (38). Her memory nicely encapsulates the degree to which Vonnegut's life story revolved around this event, which not only established his career but also led him to abandon the wife and family who had been with him during all those lean years just at the moment when the hard work seemed to be paying off.The memories from the two years in Iowa and the decade of literary celebrity following the publication of Slaughterhouse-Five are, as to be expected, mostly glowing. O'Loughlin does include a fragment that could be said to be negative, as writer David R. Slavitt in 1982 recalls a morose Vonnegut being depressed at his son Mark's wedding, then complains about the discourtesy of Vonnegut's not returning his calls. Even that bit is illuminating, however, for it indicates, as Vonnegut himself had done in his novels and nonfiction, the emotional volatility that Vonnegut experienced during these years when he had so suddenly gone from obscurity to fame and fortune. This leads into the period of the author's life in which he became, as O'Loughlin labels him, a “Reluctant Guru,” a phrase that aptly summarizes Vonnegut's vexed position as what I have called in my Kurt Vonnegut and the American Novel (2011) a “misanthropic humanist.” Vonnegut's generally pessimistic and frequently dismal worldview was also punctuated with moments of warmth and humor. John Irving recounts, “Kurt was a troubled guy, … and the issue of depression was one he lived with, often by laughing at it” (141). The bittersweet humor characterized all of Vonnegut's work, but perhaps it became most visibly powerful in his later years, in works such as A Man Without a Country (2005).The second longest entry in Kurt Vonnegut Remembered is an original essay by Klinkowitz, Vonnegut's friend and champion who more than anyone secured Vonnegut's place in academic literary studies. It is perhaps the closest thing to literary criticism in this volume, and it contextualizes Vonnegut's career and its importance to American literature. Like this volume, it is probably unnecessary, as Vonnegut's place in the hearts of fans as well as in twentieth-century literature is quite secure, but it is a nice tribute to a much-loved author by one of his greatest admirers. In that sense, too, Kurt Vonnegut Remembered is a nice tribute, and therefore a welcome contribution to Vonnegut Studies and fandom.