While Mortals Sleep

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Foreword by Dave Eggers

These previously unpublished, beautifully rendered works of fiction are a testament to Kurt Vonnegut s unique blend of observation and imagination. Here are stories of men and machines, art and artifice, and how ideals of fortune, fame, and love take curious twists in ordinary lives.

An ambitious builder of roads fritters away his free time with miniature trains until the women in his life crash his fantasy land. Trapped in a stenography pool, a young dreamer receives a call from a robber on the run, who presents her with a strange proposition. A crusty newspaperman is forced onto a committee to judge Christmas displays a job that leads him to a suspiciously ostentatious ex-con and then a miracle. Featuring a Foreword by Dave Eggers, While Mortals Sleep is a poignant reflection of our world as it is and as it could be.

Includes the following stories:

Jenny
The Epizootic
Hundred-Dollar Kisses
Guardian of the Person
With His Hand on the Throttle
Girl Pool
Ruth
While Mortals Sleep
Out, Brief Candle
Tango
Bomar
The Man Without No Kiddleys
Mr. Z
$10,000 a Year, Easy
Money Talks
The Humbugs

Praise for While Mortals Sleep

Immensely readable and thoroughly entertaining. The Washington Post

Taut, concise . . . The stories set themselves up with neat swiftness, proceed at a clip, and shut down with equal speed, [showing Vonnegut] honing his skills in structure and satire. Los Angeles Times

A lovely reminder of the mischievous moral voice we lost when we lost Kurt Vonnegut. San Francisco Chronicle

These stories were all good when they were written decades ago, but many strike me as great now. Never has the voice of Kurt Vonnegut, humanist and humorist, been more relevant. The Seattle Times

There s something distinctly timeless about Vonnegut s vision. Minneapolis Star-Tribune