[In the following review, Lubold argues that the key to Hocus Pocus is the way in which Vonnegut takes the concerns of today and portrays them in the extreme in his futuristic setting.]

Vonnegut's new novel is about a man who has returned from Vietnam, and is now, in 2001, recalling events when he worked at a school in Upstate New York and later staged a prison break in a nearby prison. Now he awaits trial for this crime. But Hocus Pocus delivers a lot more; in fact, any plot is secondary to the author's presentation of the confusing and bizarre reality of the 21st century.

Vonnegut fuses his version of a futuristic reality with one which is familiar to the one we now face in the 1990s, with the Japanese buying up everything from national park concession stands to movie studios, and with African-Americans, who continue to be thrown in jail. It's an eerie resemblance, because he takes these issues and transmutes them into an extreme, causing us to reflect on our own experience and what we will be confronting soon, if Vonnegut's wild scenario ever comes true.

Life becomes chaotic for Eugene Debs Hartke, who teaches at Tarkington but who later must stand trial for his involvement in a prison break. Add to this his insanity from his participation in Vietnam, which stimulates Vonnegut's imagination, providing him with a metaphor for the way we must abide by what we are told to do, whether it is right or wrong. The juxtaposition of Hartke's reflections about Vietnam upon the suppression of the society gives the impression that there is a relationship between the way Vietnam vets went off and fought a war and how segments of our society are drafted into playing a certain role.

Meanwhile, the Japanese yen has become the preferred currency to the less-than-valuable dollar, which, even in 1990, isn't all that ridiculous.

The kind of society he portrays is worrisome; he has extracted all of these present-day concerns into an anarchic mess, with people finally paying for their earlier sins. But the plot (and that is a narrow way of defining what actually happens in the book) is a weave of strange predictions and ideas. But there is much more than can be alluded to here; more readings of the book would reveal more ways of looking at a planet and a people who seem bent on self-destruction.

What is important about the book is how Vonnegut's style makes the book work, and whether that style will either overwhelm and intimidate, or leave you wanting more, either way it will provoke.