Hocus Pocus is a 1990 novel by Kurt Vonnegut which deals with themes of class, race, crime, suicide, and globalization. Like many of Vonnegut's novels, Hocus Pocus is not organized in a traditional linear fashion, and has a plot centered around a major event which is alluded to early, and heavily foreshadowed until the final chapters. In the case of Hocus Pocus the major plot event concerns a prison break in a small New York village, located directly across from a prominent university. The protagonist's life revolves heavily around both the prison and the university, and the community that... must accommodate both. The main character is Eugene Debs Hartke, a Vietnam War veteran and college professor, who realizes that he has killed exactly as many people as the number of women he has had sex with. The character's name is a homage to American labor and political leader Eugene V. Debs and anti-war senator Vance Hartke, both from Vonnegut's home state, Indiana. The main character's name-sharing with Eugene V.
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| Author: | Kurt Vonnegut |
| Genre: | Novel, Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative fiction |
| Year published: | 1990 |
| Number of editions: | 13 |