Heller & Vonnegut interview

PLAYBOY: What are you working on, Kurt?

VONNEGUT: On a divorce. Which is a full-time job. Didn't you find it a full-time job?

HELLER: Oh, it's more than a full-time job. You ought to go back and read that section in No Laughing Matter on the divorce. I went through all the lawyers. But yours is going to be a tranquil one, you told me.

VONNEGUT: It seems to me divorce is so common now. It ought to be more institutionalized. It's like a head-on collision every time. It's supposed to be a surprise but it's commonplace. Deliver your line about never having dreamed of being married.

HELLER: It's in Something Happened: "I want a divorce; I dream of a divorce. I was never sure I wanted to get married. But I always knew I wanted a divorce."


. . .


VONNEGUT: Nietzsche had a little one-liner on how to choose a wife. He said, "Are you willing to have a conversation with this woman for the next forty years?" That's how to pick a wife.

HELLER: If people were more widely read, there'd be fewer marriages.

Thanks again, Mr. Watt.