Review: Deadeye Dick

Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novel concludes with ''You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages - they haven't ended yet.'' Tying this work from 1982 to today, its plot elements have issues still not yet resolved: the inherent danger of easy access to firearms, nuclear weapons and radioactive waste, and -- instead of the 'bad chemicals' in the brain, such as 'Bad chemicals and bad ideas were the Yin and Yang of madness.' (Breakfast of Champions) -- the bad chemicals around.

Much like "I Hung My Head", the song written by the Sting and released in 1996, this book tackles deeper and more philosophical themes of life and death, justice and redemption. Of course, In 2002, Johnny Cash covered the song on American IV: The Man Comes Around twenty years after this novel and this story of a boy who shoots a person and the resulting shame and consequences for many still has legs and raises uncomfortable issues. Is anyone to blame? Is the gun owner or the boy shooter? Is it a tragic accident and, like something ripped from the headlines, you have abusive cops, too.



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