Vonnegut had a fascination for characters who had outlived their literary lifespan.
Take Rudy Waltz from Deadeye Dick, who shot someone accidentally as a kid, and is pretty fucked up about it as an adult. If he was a character in one of those crappy books they make you read in high school English (A Separate Peace? Wtf-ever), he would have shot himself, naturally.
Or Rabo Karabekian, the narrator from Bluebeard. He was a popular abstract expressionist painter until the paint he used turned out to flake off eventually destroying his works over time. He retires and serves as what he refers to as a museum guard to the paintings of others he was able to buy and collect during his success.
See also Cash, Johnny (songs of).
Using that same line of thinking has always seemed to me to be a really great basis for a game character. I mean, c’mon – it’s all backstory! Easy enough. Much like Vonnegut’s books, the interesting part becomes exploring who you (or the narrator) are now in the light of that life changing event.
Depressing? Maybe. So’s life. It’s also happy, funny, crazy, surprising… You get the idea.