Letters to the Editor
-
Vonnegut
I also came across him as a teen (figuratively, not literally). Cat's Cradle it was. Couldn't ask for a better primer to irreverence and a healthy disrespect for received wisdom. Ended up reading all that he'd written at that time by the time I was 20. Just in constant AWE that someone could say those things. The man drew a picture of an asshole in "Breakfast of Champions" in case you didn't know what one looked like (Maybe that is what Gore Vidal was referring to?) Pretty much the linchpin of my sense of humor from there on out. Everything can make you laugh or cry and you've got to take see it skewed.
P.S. I also agree Cat's Cradle is the best starter book. 128 pages, 131 chapters (or somewhere there abouts.) ALTHOUGH the $!$%#$ book-publishers now will only sell the new ver. that is over 200 pages in trade paperback size for around 12$ Do yourself a favor, buy an older ver. used from Amazon or some such.