Happy Birthday, Wanda June - Paperback

by Kurt Vonnegut (Author)

A woman with a little boy has two suitors: a doctor and a vacuum cleaner salesman. Her husband a famous big-game hunter and adventurer disappeared years ago in the Amazon. She is about to be declared a widow when in he walks khaki breeches puttees and all together with the pilot with whom he crashed in the Amazon valley. It happens to be his birthday an event which all those present had decided to celebrate and for which they had just purchased a cake on the spur of the moment. The cake had been intended for somebody named Wanda June who apparently never got to celebrate at all. The adventurer turns out to be a wild champion of havoc who alienates friends and demolishes violins. He fails in his effort to get his son to shoot him - the boy doesn't believe in that kind of old-fashioned heroism - and then in his own effort to shoot himself. He is a social flop out.