Vonnegut lists Trout's known residences as Bermuda, Dayton, Ohio, Hyannis, Massachusetts, and Ilium and Cohoes of New York. To this I can add Peoria, Illinois. A letter from Kilgore Trout was printed in the vox pop section of the editorial page of the Peoria Journal Star in 1971. In this Trout denounced Peoria as essentially obscene. It suggested that the natives quit raising so much hell about dirty movies and books and look in their own hearts for the genuine smut: hate, prejudice, and greed. Trout gave his address as West Main Street. Unfortunately, I no longer have the letter or the address, since I clipped out the letter and sent it to Theodore Sturgeon, who lives in the Los Angeles area. Before doing this, however, I did ascertain that the address was genuine, though Trout no longer lived there. And he had failed, as usual, to leave a forwarding address.
I do have a letter which appeared on the editorial page of the Peoria Journal Star of August 14th, 1971. This gives us some information about Trout's activities while he was in Peoria. The letter was signed by a D. Raabe, whom I met briefly after I'd given a lecture at Bradley University. Some extracts of the letter follow.
"...Eminent scatologist, Dr. K. Trout, W.E.A., in an interview outside the public facilities in Glen Oak Park, had some things to say about the Russian-Indian pact... On the subject of internal disorder, Dr. Trout noted that if Indian food becomes a fad in Russia, the Russians may 'loosen up a bit' although they might become a little touchier in certain areas --"
Apparently, Trout had a job with the Peoria Public Works Department at this time, and he claimed to have a doctor's degree. I don't know what the initials stand for, unless it's Watercloset Engineering Assistant, but I suspect that he sent in fifty dollars to an institution of dubious standing and received his diploma through the mails. Despite the degree, he still had a menial and unpleasant job. This was to be expected. One whom the world treats crappily will become an authority on crap. He knows where it's at, and he works where it all hangs out.
Trout's last known job was as an installer of aluminum combination storm windows and screens in Cohoes, New York. At this time (late 1972), Trout was living in a basement. Because of his lack of charm and other social graces, Trout's employer had refused to use him as a salesman. His fellow employees had little to do with him and did not even know that he wrote science fiction. And then one day he received a letter. It was the harbinger of a new life, a prelude to recognition of a writer too long neglected.
Trout had an invitation to be a guest of honor at a festival of arts. This was to celebrate the opening of the Mildred Barry Memorial Center for Arts in Midway Center, Indiana. With the invitation was a check for a thousand dollars. Both the honor and the check were due to Eliot Rosewater. He had agreed to loan his El Greco for exhibit at the Center if Kilgore Trout, possibly the greatest living writer in the world, would be invited.
Overjoyed, though still suspicious, Trout went to New York City to buy some copies of his own books so he could read passages from them at the festival. While there, he was mugged and picked up by the police on suspicion of robbery. He spent Veterans' Day in jail. On being released, he hitchhiked a ride with a truck driver and arrived in Midway Center. There, unfortunately, the joint of his right index finger was bitten off by a madman, and the festival was called off. This made Trout hope that he would never again have to touch, or be touched by, a human being.
Breakfast of Champions is, according to Vonnegut, the last word we'll get from him on Trout. I'm sorry to hear that, but I am also grateful to Mr. Vonnegut for having first brought Trout to the attention of the nonpornography-reading public. I am also sorry that Mr. Vonnegut indulges in sheer fantasy in the last quarter of the book. The first three parts are factual, but the last part might lead some to believe that Kilgore Trout is a fictional character. The serious reader and student of Trout will disregard the final quarter of Breakfast of Champions except to sift fact from fantasy.
Though the Midway Center Art Festival was aborted, Kilgore Trout is nevertheless on his way to fame. I've just received word that Mr. David Harris, an editor of Dell Publishing Company, is negotiating for the reprinting of Venus on the Half-shell. If the arrangements are satisfactory to both parties, the general public will have, for the first time, a chance to read a novel by Kilgore Trout.
The folio wing is a list of the known titles of the one-hundred-seventeen novels and two thousand short stories written by Trout. It's a tragically short list, and it can only be lengthened if Troutophiles make a diligent search through secondhand bookstores and porno shops for the missing works.
Novels The Gutless Wonder (1932) 2BR02B Venus on the Half-shell Oh Say Can You Smell? The First District Court of Thankyou Pan-Galactic Three-Day Pass Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension (1948) The Gospel from Outer Space The Big Board Pan-Galactic Straw-boss (Mouth Crazy) Plague on Wheels Now It Can Be Told The Son of Jimmy Valentine How You Doin'? The Smart Bunny The Pan-Galactic Memory Bank
SHORT STORIES
The Dancing Fool (April, 1962 issue of Black Garterbelt, a magazine published by World Classics Library)
This Means You
Gilgongo!
Hail to the Chief
The Baring-gaffner of Bagnialto or This Year's Masterpiece
(Author's Note: Since this was first written, Mr. Vonnegut's novel Jailbird has come out. In this Mr. Vonnegut claims that it was not Trout but another man who wrote the works which Vonnegut hitherto had claimed to be Trout's. Nobody believes this disclaimer, but the reasons for it have been the subject of much speculation. Several people have wondered why the initial letter of the surname of the man Mr. Vonnegut claims is the real Trout is also mine. Is Mr. Vonnegut obliquely pointing his finger at me?
I really don't know. In one of many senses, or perhaps two or three, I am Kilgore Trout. But then the same could be said of at least fifty science-fiction writers.)
Thanks for the Feast
This is the only item in this collection which I did not write. I was, however, responsible for its being written. I did not ask that it be written. I did not even know that it was being written until I got a long-distance call from Digby Diehl, editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review section. He informed me that Leslie A. Fiedler, the distinguished critic and author (An End to Innocence, The Nude Croquet, Getting Busted, The Stranger in Shakespeare, Freaks, and others) was writing an article on me. Fiedler wanted me to send him some of my works which he lacked so that he could complete his critique.
I was surprised, because I had no idea that Fiedler was the least interested in science-fiction, let alone in me. I had the same reaction that Kilgore Trout did when he ran into Billy Pilgrim, the antihero of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.
The article was printed in the Times of April 23,1972. Ostensibly, it was a review of my Tarzan Alive but was, in actuality, a bird's-eye, or perhaps a worm'seye, view of my career. It was accompanied by an illustration of a goofy-looking Tarzan riding astraddle a rocket, obviously a phallic symbol. Its title was: "Getting into the Task of Now Pornography." I could take the illustration, but I did not care for the title. I found out later that it was an editor's, not Fiedler's. The editor had also emasculated the text and inserted some mismating of titles and their publishers.