Hocus Pocus is a 1990 novel by Kurt Vonnegut. Its main character is Vietnam War veteran and college professor Eugene Debs Hartke, who comes to the realization that he has killed exactly as many people as the number of women he has had sex with. In an editor's note at the beginning of the book, Vonnegut himself claims to have found hundreds of differently sized scraps of paper, from wrapping paper to business cards, sequentially numbered by the author (Debs) in order to form a narrative of some kind. This theme of an episodic narrative and scraps of information is echoed in one recurring feature of the novel, a computer program called GRIOT. By inputting certain characteristics of a person's life and current situation, the program can give an approximation of what sort of life that person might have had based on the database of lives the program can access. The main pieces of information required for GRIOT to work are: age, race, degree of education, and drug use. Jump to: navigation, search 1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Vietnam War or Second Indochina War was a conflict between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN, or North Vietnam), allied with the National Liberation Front (NLF, or Viet Cong) against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam), and its allies—notably the United States... A professor is a senior teacher, lecturer and researcher, usually in a college or university. ...

Eugene's college is held hostage by recently escaped prisoners from a near-by prison. Having volunteered many hours of his time at the jail, he becomes the spiritual leader for the society formed between the staff and former prisoners.

Like almost all of Vonnegut's books, this is an account told in the past-tense by a character who shares his background with Vonnegut. It is also suggested that it mirrors some parts of the Attica Prison riots. The Attica Prison riots were general prison uprisings that occurred at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York, United States, on September 9, 1971. ...

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