BREAKFAST of CHAMPIONS or GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.


Originally published in 1973.

Breakfast of Champions, to me, is the second most well-known Vonnegut novel after Slaughterhouse-Five. 

The plot of this story is deceptively simple and the writing style is not complicated - but this story has a lot going on.

There are three main characters. One is Dwayne Hoover, a very successful owner of a Pontiac car dealership from Midland, Ohio and numerous other small businesses. He is by far the most successful man in town. He helps bankroll a fine arts festival that the town helps will make them known as a cultural center. He is also going crazy.

The fine arts festival has invited Kilgore Trout, a recurring character from other Vonnegut novels, to be the star of the arts festival. Trout is a prolific, but unsuccessful author. He is published, but only by publishers of porn novels. They use his books as a way to make their books seem more legit, kind of like Playboy used "the articles" to make the magazine seem classier. Trout iis so unsuccessful as an author that he literally has to hitchhike from New York City to Midland. 

The third character is the narrator. The narrator is the author of the book and, I presume, the narrator is Vonnegut himself. The narrator has filled the book with his line drawings. Sometimes, the narrator uses the pictures to move the plot along, sometimes he uses it to avoid describing something, and sometimes he just throws in an illustration for the heck of it. 

The book is constantly moving to the point where all three characters meet in a hotel bar...

Vonnegut famously graded his own books in report card style. He gave Breakfast of Champions a C. 

I disagree, even though I have had a hard time coming up with a rating for this novel. This novel is too unique to be a middle of the road "C". It is often juvenile (Vonnegut spends a lot of time talking about penises, he has a drawing of his anus) but it is very Meta in the way the author is a character in his own story. Plus, the quirky illustrations add a certain charm.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Breakfast of Champions. 

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