Ease Reading-Find Your Next Favorite Book

Hot Search

Mother Night

kurt vonnegut jr.

... Show More
Librarian note: Alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.

282 pages, Paperback

First published February 1,1961

This edition

Format
282 pages, Paperback
Published
May 11, 1999 by Dial Press
ISBN
9780385334143
ASIN
0385334141
Language
English
Characters More characters

More editions

About the author

Profile Image for kurt vonnegut jr.

kurt vonnegut jr.

... Show More
Kurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.

He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.

After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.

His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.

Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Readers also enjoyed

Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 99 votes)
5 stars
39(39%)
4 stars
28(28%)
3 stars
32(32%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
99 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Nix_Leclaire
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
The narrator is an American who broadcasted propaganda for the Nazis during the war. His hate speech about Jews over the radio was credited with inspiring a significant fervour among Germans. Long after the war he's arrested by the Israelis as a war criminal. He claims he was a double agent working for the Americans. This is a brilliant dark satire. It investigates the nature of guilt and the extent to which truth can be found in what we say about ourselves.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
knarf_37
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
Before this, I'd never read anything by Kurt Vonnegut.

From this day forward, consider me a fan.

It's strange, really, how some books fall into your life at exactly the right time. I don't know how it happens. If we somehow unconsciously know that this is the book we need and pick it up and let it take us places. Perhaps. All I know is this particular book came into my life at the most opportune moment. I say opportune, because I just recently acquired the skills to really understand this book, or at least to add some depth to it.

I just finished A Philosophy of Evil, and it deals with a many similar themes to this one, that is, the many shades of evil, and the most destructive variation of them all: banality. Indifference. Some people simply, no matter what you do or how it's presented, don't see that what they've done is a bad thing. Can you blame them for it? I say yes, but it is difficult to truly punish them. Does it make them truly evil? No, but it makes them dangerous. They lack a moral compass. These people are the worst. Some might say it's best to not know that you've been evil. I beg to differ. I would always say it's preferable to know, to posses the ability to decide for yourself and reflect on your actions, even if it doesn't always turn out to your liking.

That said, this is an outstanding book. Kurt Vonnegut is a rare talent, and I understand now why I've been hearing his name all over. This is not a look into the mechanics of war, but rather the mechanics of a man at war. And to do that with wit and an undercurrent of intelligence and sarcasm...

Yes, I am definitely a fan.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
mairutenyu
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
"You are the only man I ever heard of," Mengel said to me this morning, "who has a bad conscience about what he did in the war. Everybody else, no matter what side he was on, no matter what he did, is sure a good man could not have acted in any other way."

Poor Howard Campbell, Jr., an American living in Germany, is recruited to spew on air Nazi propaganda that is laced with coded information for the Allies.

"You'll be volunteering right at the start of the war to be a dead man. Even if you live through the war without being caught, you'll find your reputation gone - and probably very little to live for," he said.

"You make it sound very attractive," I said.

Now reviled worldwide, he has become a man without a country, hiding in an attic apartment in Greenwich Village.

Some authors can take themes like war, injustice, cruelty and suffering, and turn them into good fiction. Only Vonnegut can craft these horrors into something you actually enjoy reading; novels that don't make you feel completely devastated at the conclusion, but wryly amused and possibly even a bit hopeful.

My copy has this review by Rich Schickel:

"Over the years Vonnegut has advanced from diagnostician to exorcist, finding in intensified comic art the magic analgesic for the temporary relief of existential pain."

I can't possibly think of a better description than that.

And as always, Vonnegut offers some sort of warning that the reader would be wise to heed:

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
C1nd
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
I didn't need Vonnegut to tell me this, but he confirmed it anyway: Nazism is thriving in America. Except that few of the bigots and extremists in America equate themselves with Nazis, and this almost makes it worse.

Howard W. Campbell, Jr., the narrator attempting to wash his hands of his complicity in the Nazi war effort, later appears in Slaughterhouse-Five, the more famous of Vonnegut's WWII novels, but as with Eliot Rosewater and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, this--the full monty rather than a mere cameo appearance--is by far the superior. By sympathizing with Howard W. Campbell the reader is sympathizing with a Nazi, however much he may deny it, but still I would much rather sympathize with him, or with The Reader's Hanna Schmitz, than with a blind patriot like Bernard B. O'Hare--it isn't often that I despise a Vonnegut character. (I feel the same about Bernard B. O'Hare as I do about Frank Wheeler.)
"There are plenty of good reasons for fighting,' I said, 'but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive.”
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Pleasant_pancake
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
— Именно заради това, което съм видял и преживял, вече е невъзможно да кажа каквото и да било. Загубих дарбата да говоря смислено. Дрънкам безсмислици на цивилизования свят и той ми отговаря със същото.

***

Мислете каквото си искате за безусловната вяра, но за мен способността да вярваме, без да задаваме въпроси, е абсолютното зло.

***

— И разстрелян.

— За плагиатство?

— За оригиналност — каза Уиртанен. — Плагиатството е най-незначителното прегрешение. Какво може да навреди, ако някой напише нещо, което вече е написано? Истинската оригиналност е тежко престъпление, което често изисква жестоко и необикновено наказание, преди да получи последния смъртен удар.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
yokobluu
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
I love the ending even though it's quite simple. It makes you wonder if he freed himself or not.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Glunpa
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
I guess my only reading plan for the year is probably reading all of my amazing Vonneguts!
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Googleflax
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
A person can be many things to many people, and they all can be perfectly true.

A book that explores the depths of grey morality that is humanity when we prefer to think of things and see them as black and white. Another wonderful Vonnegut book. He challenges the reader while keeping a sense of humor, no matter if it is dark and dry. I think we all know people that can justify the worst actions, but our protagonist is one that seems to be done with justifying, he is seeing that horrible actions in the name of good might be exactly what makes it possible for horrible things to happen/continue/escalate. Vonnegut has a simplicity and ease that makes all of his books easy and quick reads, even when the subject matter is heavy.
0 0 Reply
Leave a Review
You must be logged in to rate and post a review. Register an account to get started.