Jailbird (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- First Published: 1979
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Antistory
- Time of Work: 1977
- Setting: Cleveland, Ohio; Massachusetts; New York City; and rural Georgia
- Genres: Long fiction, Antistory
- Subjects: 1970’s, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Communism or communists, South or Southerners, New York City, Midwest, Antiheroes, New England, Wills, Wit or humor, Millionaires, Corporations, Watergate Affair
- Locales: New York, NY, Georgia, Cleveland, OH, Massachusetts
Characters Discussed
Walter F. Starbuck, born Walter Stankiewicz, a RAMJAC corporation executive and convict. The life of this sixty-four-year-old, “jockey-sized” man has been marked by unwitting mishaps. The son of poor immigrants, he is educated at Harvard by tycoon Alexander Hamilton McCone. He becomes a minor government official, marries Ruth, whom he meets in World War II, and has a son who hates him. In hearings before a committee headed by Richard Nixon, he innocently names his friend Leland Clewes as a Communist, sending him to jail. He is reviled by friends, and...
[The entire page is 894 words long]
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