Pub-Crawling with Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I met Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., once, in 1970. I had stayed in Frankfurt, Germany, when I got out of the US Army, and gotten a job as a reporter for The Overseas Weekly, a GI paper. One day I went with a fellow reporter, Burr Sneider to see Vonnegut, who was on tour and giving a speech at the America Haus; Burr intended to interview him for the newspaper -- Vonnegut was in mid-career and well known to young people like myself.

So we went up after the speech and introduced ourselves, but Vonnegut didn't want to just do an interview -- he wanted to go to a bar or something and have a drink. We were delighted to oblige him. We took him across the river to Sachsenhausen, the Old Town, where there were lots of beer bars and apple-wine bars.

He was accompanied by a young woman named Jill Krementz, whom he introduced as his photographer, but it seemed clear she was his girlfriend; I see from the obits that she later became his second wife.

The evening was more interesting notionally than for anything that actually happened. Vonnegut, who was in his late 40s at the time, the age at which most of his publicity photos were taken, had little to say; he mostly just sat and drank. He did remark at one point that, having just had his play Tell Me You Love Me, Junie Moon, produced on Broadway, that writing plays was much easier than writing books, and he recommended it. That was about it; his girlfriend, as it happens, did most of the talking, keeping the conversation flowing as we went from bar to bar.

Still, I was delighted; I had gone pub-crawling with Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. He may not have said much, but it was still a brush with greatness that I could tell my children. Who haven't read any Vonnegut, unfortunately, and so aren't quite as dumbstruck as I'd like.

Did I tell you about the time I had dinner with Tina Turner? Or drinks with The Who? One of these days....

Mac McCarthy

[This post got these three comments before I moved it over to this blog location.]

3 Comments -
Blogger NoVA Dad said...
I ran across this entry today while doing a Google search; since posting my own encounter with Vonnegut on my blog, I’ve sought out the memories and opinions of others and have found some great stories. I really enjoyed reading of your experiences with Vonnegut’s writing and of your encounter with him, and just wanted to pass that along to you. I’m in the process of reading (and in some instances, re-reading) many of his books now and hoping that my daughters enjoy them when they get older as much as I do.

Blogger Mac said...
Thanks, NovaDad. YOu know, I haven't read a Vonnegut book in a long time; I should follow your lead and pull out one of the old favs.... mac

Sibylle said...
Hey Mac, what an excellent story! I for one am dumbstruck. :-) And yep, time to re-read the old favourites.