Cat’s Cradle is the fifth book I have read by Kurt Vonnegut. You’ll never believe it, but as a white, cis-gender man in college, I really got into Slaughterhouse-Five. After that, Vonnegut went into my rotation of authors I would look out for any time I went into a used bookstore. Since Vonnegut books are a finite resource, I try to restrict myself to one book every few years. Since then, I have read Breakfast of Champions, Armageddon in Retrospect, and Slapstick.
I enjoyed them all to varying degrees, though nothing has hit quite the same as Slaughterhouse, though I recognize that the time I read it might have been more formative than the book itself. In a strange way, Kurt Vonnegut has become one of my comfort authors. Despite how wild and borderline depressing how some of his novels can be, it always feels a bit like putting on a favorite sweater when I start one of his books.
Cat’s Cradle tells the story of a writer who is working on a book about the co-creator of the atomic bomb and the history of the day the first atomic bombs were used. Since the man who co-created the bomb has since passed, the narrator makes contact with his three children for information. One of the children is on a fictional Caribbean island called San Lorenzo. It turns out that before his death, he invented a new potentially world-ending weapon and his children hold the keys to unlocking it.
Much of the plot and commentary is based around the Cuban Missile Crisis which occurred around the time Cat’s Cradle was being written. As usual, the satire is funny and insightful. It doesn’t quite stand out from the other Vonnegut books I have read, but the low end of a Vonnegut book is still great to me.