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Dan Wakefield is a novelist, journalist, and screenwriter. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, he was an Eagle Scout and began his writing career as a columnist of his high school newspaper, The Shortridge Daily Echo. Shortridge High was also the school Kurt Vonnegut had graduated from a few years earlier. They didn't know each other at the time, but eventually they met and became lifelong friends. Dan has served as a sports correspondent and writer for a number of magazines and newspapers including Harpers, Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times Magazine. His best-selling novels Going All The Way and Starting Over were made into feature films, and a documentary film was produced of his memoir New York in the Fifties. He splits his time between Indianapolis IN and Miami FL.
Dan Wakefield has delivered Kurt Vonnegut to a new generation of readers. During the Vietnam war years Vonnegut was regarded as a truth-teller by young students who gulped down his novels. As Wakefield puts it, 'He said things that other people thought but didn't' say or hadn't dared to think but recognized as true when they heard them.' This book is especially important to anyone who aspires to be a writer. Vonnegut was more than merely gifted: he was dogged. In 1992, when he was 70, Vonnegut said, 'It has always been the case with me that when my life is a mess I can find some relief by writing.' Vonnegut's good friend Dan Wakefield knew him as did few others; and he has done us all a favor with this detailed biography of this fearless writer. -Phillip Hoose, winner of the National Book Award for Young People's Literature I love the tone the second person gives the story. There's something intimate and warm about it, the way a loving parent might speak to a child. It says I see you and I understand you. The thing that students love about Vonnegut is the humor but also the moral compass, the humanity and this book shows where it comes from. -Susan Neville, Butler University In this rich, engaging biography, Dan Wakefield introduces readers to the key mentors, artistic influences, family members, and experiences that shaped Kurt Vonnegut's distinctive voice and extraordinary career as a writer. Vonnegut fans young and old alike will be enchanted by Wakefield's intimate and always insightful portrait of the beloved Hoosier icon. -Christina Jarvis, author of Lucky Mud & Other Foma: A Field Guide to Kurt Vonnegut's Planetary Citizenship
