they had three children, mark, eddy, and nannet. many years later his sister, alice, died a day or two after her husband died in a freak train accident. alice had four children, and three of them came to live with the vonnegut family, so they had quite a large household. seven children and vonnegut at that time was writing books that, at that time were less familiar, but he had published several books and articles for magazines as well as working a job as a car salesman for saab. the experience of writing about dresden and what happened to him was tremendously difficult for vonnegut. it took him about 20 years to be able to publish the books. jane, his wife, you know, had encouraged him to write it. she worked as his editor on the book. she asked questions and got clarity on issues and helped him to retrieve a lot of those memories that he had repressed. because of the family situation with the addition of more children and the success that was coming with the publishing of slaughter house five, his marriage with jane was rocky. jus