Kurt Vonnegut’s “Basic Training” Finally Released, Amazon Kindle Store Gets Exclusive

Rosetta Books on Tuesday announced the release of a never-before-seen novella by writer Kurt Vonnegut. Titled Basic Training the book is set to be sold exclusively through the Amazon Kindle Store.

Basic Training is a novella that is believed to be an autobiographical story that focuses on the protagonist Haley Brandon. Haley visits a relative known simply as the General, a man who is determined to win Haley over to his perception of American values.

The novella was written in the late 1940s, shortly after Kurt had returned from World War II where he was captured and held prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge.

In the 1940s Kurt Vonnegut attempted to shop Basic Training around to “The Saturday Evening Post” and “McCalls” but the work was ultimately rejected and never made it to press. During that time Vonnegut was still a struggling writer who was working in the publicity department at General Electric. At the time Vonnegut was pitching his literary works under the name Mark Harvey.

Fans of Kurt Vonnegut can pick up the book as a Kindle Single for the reasonable price of just $1.99.

This likely won’t be the last piece of work we’ll see from Vonnegut who died in 2007. After his death it was announced that hundreds of unpublished works remained at his home in Indiana. RosettaBooks simply chose Basic Training as the book they wanted to publish through Vonnegut’s literary executor.

According to Rosetta the Basic Training novella touches on Vonnegut’s favorite themes including the improbability of existence and the meaning of heroism.