Among the most original stylists in American literature, Vonnegut vents his disgust and moral outrage with government and humanity and the entire universe in a scathing social/political/philosophical satire.  Hocus Pocus takes on an absurdist's perspective of human history as protagonist Eugene Debs Hartke--West Point graduate, Vietnam vet, college professor, educator of the disabled and the illiterate--awaits trial for a crime initially unspecified.