Chapter 9 Summary and Analysis

Jill Krementz is an Episcopalian who rarely goes to church, while Vonnegut is an atheist who winds up in churches a lot. When they marry in 1979, he suggests the charming Episcopalian "Little Church Around the Corner," which turns him down as a divorcee and suggests Christ Church United Methodist, where there are no snags. They agree that he has enough children, but they adopt an infant, Lily, who becomes his principal companion. Vonnegut quotes from the preface to a Festschrift he presents on her birthday. Jill is born on Manhattan Island but raised in Morristown, New Jersey, by Virginia and Walter Krementz. She attends private schools and vacations with the rich, but everything she owns at fifty comes from work as a photographer and creator of children's books. They meet in 1970 during production of a Vonnegut play, while Jill is living...