Adverse Reaction Prozac 07/10/1997 Colorado Famous Author Says Prozac Put Him "Out Of Business"
 
 Summary:<br><br>Paragraph 5 reads:&nbsp; &quot;When I was at the Writer&#39;s Workshop in Iowa, the University of Iowa medical center realized they had a lot of professional writers to study,&#39;&#39; Vonnegut remembers. &#39;`It turned out a lot of us were monopolar depressives from families of monopolar depressives. That explains why my mother committed <strong>suicide</strong>. I&#39;ve been hospitalized twice for really bad depression,<strong> and I&#39;ve tried Prozac. It&#39;s bad news for people who have to be self-motivated. If you have a boss and a routine, it&#39;s probably good, but not if you have to get yourself out of bed. It put me out of business.&#39;&#39;&#39;<br /><br /></strong>___________________________________________________________________<br /><br />FINAL WORDS AUTHOR KURT VONNEGUT SAYS HIS LATEST IS HIS LAST<br />Rocky Mountain News (CO)<br />October 7, 1997<br />Author: Alan Dumas<br />Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer <br />Estimated printed pages: 3 <br /><img src="../images.newsbank.com/infoweb/agg/shim.gif" alt="[]" width="1" height="1" /> <br /><br />What would have happened if Dostoevsky had taken <strong>Prozac</strong>?<br /><br />``He would have just farted around until someone told him to get a job,&#39;&#39; Kurt Vonnegut Jr. says. <br />And what if the young Vonnegut had been treated with the same drug?<br /><br />``I&#39;d still be a PR man in Schenectady,&#39;&#39; he says.<br /><br />Vonnegut, a great American novelist and monopolar depressive, will appear tonight at the Tattered Cover Book Store in lower downtown.<br /><br />``When I was at the Writer&#39;s Workshop in Iowa, the University of Iowa medical center realized they had a lot of professional writers to study,&#39;&#39; Vonnegut remembers. ``It turned out a lot of us were monopolar depressives from families of monopolar depressives. That explains why my mother committed <strong>suicide</strong>. I&#39;ve been hospitalized twice for really bad depression, and I&#39;ve tried <strong>Prozac</strong>. It&#39;s bad news for people who have to be self-motivated. If you have a boss and a routine, it&#39;s probably good, but not if you have to get yourself out of bed. It put me out of business.&#39;&#39;<br /><br />Vonnegut&#39;s new book, Timequake, is filled with meditations on why life is a miserable experience that many hate, along with equally convincing meditations on why it&#39;s an honor to be alive. He&#39;s announced that it will be his last book.<br /><br />``It took me a lot of time to realize what this book should be,&#39;&#39; Vonnegut says. ``It&#39;s my last chapter, the last chapter `This is it,&#39; Vonnegut says of new book to all the rest of my work. All my books are in print, and this is it. After a while, Jesus Christ himself would have started repeating himself. Many writers died young with a sense of being incomplete. Thank God I lived long enough to finish.&#39;&#39;<br /><br />Of course, Vonnegut doesn&#39;t really believe in God. He&#39;s a humanist, a free thinker. Nonetheless, many of his novels, notably Cats Cradle and The Sirens of Titan, have been concerned with God and the order of the universe.<br /><br />``John Updike said I was a funny atheist because I talk about God more than any seminarian,&#39;&#39; Vonnegut says. ``It&#39;s an interesting idea, a handle on life. What we free thinkers say is, if what Jesus said was wise and good, what does it matter if he&#39;s God or not? The Sermon on the Mount was wonderful.&#39;&#39;<br /><br />In Vonnegut&#39;s opinion, the sermon was about how tough it is to be alive. He agrees with Thoreau that many lead lives of quiet desperation.<br /><br />``How many people have lives worth living?&#39;&#39; he asks. ``I&#39;d say 17% seems about right. Thank God mine was one of them.&#39;&#39;<br /><br />Vonnegut&#39;s fanciful and meandering plots would seem to make his books almost impossible to adapt for the movies, but people keep trying. George Roy Hill did a nice job with Slaughterhouse-Five in 1972, and last year Mother Night with Nick Nolte got good reviews.<br /><br />``It&#39;s the best acting Nolte ever did,&#39;&#39; Vonnegut says. ``He worked practically for free. He said he took the role because it reminded him of why he became an actor in the first place.&#39;&#39;<br /><br />Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead tried for years to bring The Sirens of Titan to the screen.<br /><br />``I met with the Grateful Dead at La Guardia Airport,&#39;&#39; Vonnegut recalls. ``They didn&#39;t know whether to offer me a joint or not. They couldn&#39;t do business without one. I said `no thanks.&#39; &#39;&#39;<br /><br />Now the team that made Mother Night is working on The Sirens of Titan.<br /><br />Although not a big fan of book tours, Vonnegut says he loves Denver, especially the Tattered Cover, the 1 / 1 Gallery, where he displayed his artwork last year, and the Wynkoop Brewery, owned by John Hickenlooper, the son of an old fraternity brother.<br /><br />``John&#39;s father died when he was 6 or so,&#39;&#39; Vonnegut says. ``So I knew his father better than he did. In our fraternity house at Cornell, he sold chewing gum and stuff. He called his store Hickenlooper&#39;s Lockenbar. We called it Lockenlooper&#39;s Hickenbar.&#39;&#39;<br /><br />Vonnegut is now 74. He&#39;s written 15 novels, two books of nonfiction and one great play, Happy Birthday Wanda June. He says that should be enough.<br /><br />And if we need an epitaph for his life and career? He suggests his disclaimer in Timequake: ``All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.&#39;&#39;<br /><br />INFOBOX<br /><br />IF YOU GO<br />Kurt Vonnegut Jr. will read and sign his latest book, Timequake, at 7:30 p.m. today at the Tattered Cover in lower downtown,1628 16th St. Free tickets for a place in line will be distributed beginning at 6:30 p.m. Information: 436-1070.<br /><br />LIB2 <br />&nbsp; Caption:<br />Color Photo <br />&nbsp; Caption:<br />Kurt Vonnegut. FILE: RETURNED - UNAVAILABLE (DUMAS) <br />Memo:&nbsp; Headline p.1A - FINAL WORDS / AUTHOR KURT VONNEGUT IN TOWN TO PITCH HIS LATEST - AND LAST - BOOK<br />SEE END OF TEXT FOR INFOBOX <br />Edition:&nbsp; Final<br />Section:&nbsp; Entertainment/Weekend/Spotlight<br />Page:&nbsp; 6D<br />Index Terms: BOOK<br />Record Number:&nbsp; 9710090117 <br /><br />OpenURL Article Bookmark (right click, and copy the link location):<br /><a href="http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&amp;rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:NewsBank:RMNB&amp;rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&amp;rft_dat=0EB4E988E012FC1D&amp;svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated4&amp;req_dat=0FC00B934DD580D0">FINAL WORDS AUTHOR KURT VONNEGUT SAYS HIS LATEST IS HIS LAST</a> 
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