THE VONNEGUT BROTHERS. SCIENCE AND FICTION IN THE HOUSE OF MAGIC, GINGER STRAND

In the late 1940s, Kurt Vonnegut got a job in the Public Relations department of General Electric in Schenectady, New York, where his older brother, Bernard, was already making a name for himself as one of the leading scientists at "the House of Magic," the nickname for the company's research laboratory. Having survived the bombing of Dresden by hiding in a freezer at Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt dreamed of being a novelist, but kept his ambition a secret, writing at night and on weekends, in the time he had free from the press releases that occupied his days. Bernie, meanwhile, joined "Project Cirrus," a series of climate control experiments that soon attracted the interest of the United States Army. However, as evidence mounted that Project Cirrus might be causing alarming changes in the atmosphere, Bernard began to suspiciously contemplate the possibility that his inventions could be used for harmful purposes… and Kurt began to write a different kind of story: stories starring scientists who had to face thorny moral issues and confront the consequences of their fantastic inventions.

Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, the atomic threat, the obsession with controlling the weather, and the dawn of the digital age, The Vonnegut Brothers It blends biography with cultural history to tell the fascinating story of two brothers united by ambition and the will to confront the ethical dilemmas of their era, revealing how the desire to control the natural world shaped one of the most inventive novelists of the past century.

"The Vonnegut brothers It's a gem. Strand has not only unearthed a complex and little-known history of science and politics that addresses important questions about ethics and progress, but he also presents it with infectious and unabashed exuberance. His prose crackles on the page.
—John Wilwol, The San Francisco Chronicle

"The elements of the fascinating dual life of the Vonnegut brothers—Bernard, the scientist, and Kurt, the writer—are interwoven as skillfully as the plots in the latter's best novels. We are presented with a superlative, provocative, and lucidly narrated biography that provides us with a unique perspective on the great dilemmas that Bernard had to deal with privately and that Kurt addressed in his literary work."
—Mark Levine, Booklist

"While many readers will be familiar with the story of a writer wary of science in postwar North America and his distrust of the military-industrial complex, few will know the fascinating story of the Vonnegut brothers. And few non-fiction works about novelists boast such a lucid perspective on the material connections between science, fiction, and war."
—Jonathon Sturgeon, Flavorwire

"Strand tells two fantastic stories: the rise and fall of weather-manipulation science and the development of Kurt Vonnegut as a novelist. This absorbing essay raises numerous still-relevant questions about the use of technology versus nature."
—Publishers Weekly

• Paperback with flaps
• 376 pp. 14 x 21.5 cm.
• ISBN: 978-84-17645-14-4