Chapter 9

When Billy's wife Valencia dies, I felt that it was all kind of sudden, and the author just wanted to 'get rid of her'. Poor thing, she hears that her husband's plane has crashed, and then survives a crash of her own, with a mercedes vehicle, only to be overcome by carbon monoxide, and die. Why was she killed so suddenly? It is kind of interesting that Billy survives, but she dies. Her death doesn't seem to effect Billy at all. He seems completely focused on telling the world about Tralfamadorians. Why has this suddenly become the number one thing on his list? It wasn't very important before the plane crash.

In the hospital, he meets a man named Rumfoord. Billy tells Rumfoord that he was there, when Dresden was bombed. Will Rumfoord be reintroduced in the last chapter of Slaughter House Five? He was brought in suddenly, and then taken out just as quickly. Did he have any significance? Or was he a mere filler?

Billy then takes a secret trip to New York. He slips out while his nurse isn't looking, and tries to find a to broadcast his Tralfamadorian news. How does he think he will convince the world that Tralfamadorians exist? Why does he think this is so important? How will he explain the difficult concept of time, that the Tralfamadorians propose?

At the end of the chapter, Billy travels in time back to Tralfamadore. He is talking with Montana, who has born him a son. The author doesn't give us any information on his son, I wonder why that is. Is he merely not important?

Anyways, Montana seems to be bored with the conversation that she and Billy are having. I wonder how Billy gets off of Tralfamadore. Does he simply just leave Montana and his son there?

Once again, a prayer from earlier in the book is brought into the story. Around Montana's neck is a locket with the engraved words of "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference."

Why does the author bring this prayer into the book, again?