“Pepsi Cola hits the spot”; “If there’s a gleam in her eye”: Heller, Closing Time, pp. 205, 208.
“This is the voice of”: letter from the Jewish Daily Forward in Isaac Metzger, ed., A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward (New York: Shocken, 1971), p. 107.
“[w]e were prudent with money”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 17.
“Miss Peck or Miss Beck”; “dark, buxom, married, mature”: ibid., p. 131.
College was out of reach for them financially: In Now and Then (page 22), Heller wrote that as a “concession to respectable conformity,” he applied to night school at Brooklyn College when he was eighteen, though this was not financially feasible and he “much preferred [his] nighttime social life” to the idea of going to night classes.
“[You] have been reading about the bad break I got”: Lou Gehrig, speech at Yankee Stadium, July 4, 1939; posted at lougehrig.com/about/speech.htm.
“fragrances of olive oil”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 136.
“Circumcised”: ibid., p. 156.
“[At the time,] we did not know about the concentration camps”: “World War II Writers Symposium” at the University of South Carolina, April 12–14, 1995,” in Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook 1995, ed. Matthew Bruccoli (Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 1996), p. 157.
“[B]y the end of 1942”: ibid., p. 139.
“The day I enlisted”: ibid., p. 153.
In the hours following the invasion at Pearl Harbor: LeRoy Ashby, With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture Since 1830 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006), pp. 263–64.
“[T]he feeling after Pearl Harbor was nationwide”: “World War II Writers Symposium,” p. 156.
“[S]ociety in America”: ibid., p. 143.
“‘moratorium’ that emerges in the lives”: Heller, Now and Then, pp. 166–67.
4. A COLD WAR
aviation cadet training: According to Susan Braudy, “First Heller went to armorers’ school. Then he transferred to cadet school when rumors began to circulate that armorers became gunners. Gunners didn’t last long in combat.” See Susan Braudy, “A Few of the Jokes, Maybe Yes, But Not the Whole Book,” The New Journal 26 (1967): 9–10.
“You have a twisted brain”: Joseph Heller, Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 151.
Years later, Heller recalled doing the lindy hop: See Joseph Heller, Closing Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), pp. 221–22. The character of Sammy Singer in the novel shares almost identical biographical experiences with Heller. According to journalist Philip Marchand, “[Heller] admits that Closing Time’s Singer is based on himself.” See Philip Marchand, “Joseph Heller Looks Back with Fondness,” Toronto Star, April 7, 1998.
“I loved Denver”: Joseph Heller, “I Am the Bombardier!” New York Times Magazine, May 7, 1995, p. 61.
“They put us in dark rooms”: “World War II Writers Symposium” at the University of South Carolina, April 12–14, 1995, in Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook 1995, ed. Matthew Bruccoli (Farmington Hills, MI: Thompson Gale, 1996), p. 162.
“The most surprising thing about preflight school”: Samuel Hynes, Flights of Passage: Recollections of a World War II Aviator (New York: Penguin, 1988), p. 37.
“weird, twisted pieces of metal”; “The Norden bombsight”: “World War II Writers Symposium,” pp. 159–60.
“Mindful of the secret trust”: The Bombardier’s Oath is posted on numerous Web sites. See, for example, centennialofflight.gov/essay/Dictionary/NORDEN_BOMBSIGHT/DI145.htm.
“not all that it should be to obtain the maximum efficiency”: See 389thbombgroup.com/timeline01.php.
“the President ha[d] appointed and commissioned [him]”: The standard appointment letter can be seen at reddog1944.com/charles_cook_air_corps_bio001.htm.
By the end of the following month: Joseph Heller, individual flight record, March 1944, Joseph Heller Archive, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.
“entertainment [in Columbia] was limited”: See “History: Activation and Training Period Before Departure, Sept. 11, 1942 to Feb. 14, 1943,” posted at reddog1944.com/487th_Squadron_Album_History%20of%20the%20340th.htm.
logged over 230 hours in the air: Joseph Heller, individual flight record, April 25, 1944, Joseph Heller Archive.
The B-25s on which he trained: For details on bomber training, I have drawn upon Samuel Hynes’s Flights of Passage, reddog1944.com, and Harry D. George and Harry D. George, Jr., Georgio Italiano: An American Pilot’s Unlikely Tuscan Adventure (Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2000).
“jackassing around”; “It is an unwritten law”: Captain Everett B. Thomas, Round the World with the 488th Bombardment Squadron, Aug. 20, 1942–Nov. 7, 1945 (privately printed yearbook, 1946), pp. 11, 15. A rare copy of this yearbook is kept in the Joseph Heller Archives.
“[T]hey weren’t entirely at home with its raucous splendor”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 136.
“in transit overseas”: Joseph Heller, individual flight record, April 27, 1944, Joseph Heller Archive.
Once airborne over the ocean: For details of the overseas journey, I have drawn upon George and George, Georgio Italiano.
“[In Algeria], I shared a tent with a medical assistant”: Heller, Closing Time, p. 224. Philip Marchand cites Heller’s admission that the character of Singer in Closing Time is based on him in “Joseph Heller Looks Back with Fondness,” Toronto Star, April 7, 1998.
a sign on the outskirts of the field: For a photograph of this sign, see “The 489th Bombardment Group in Corsica,” posted at warwingsart.com/12thAirForce/page.html.
“Capt. Winebrenner”: Daniel Setzer, “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller’s Novel, Catch-22,” p. 27; posted at home.comcast.net/~dhsetzer.
“[T]he sound of a .45 discharging”: Dominique Taddei, U.S.S. Corsica, L’ile porte-avions (Ajaccio, Corsica: Albiana, 2003), p. 95.
“A few practice shots”: Setzer, “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller’s Novel, Catch-22,” p. 18.
“something of a tireless wonder”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 174.
“symptoms of fear”: ibid., p. 175.
“Word is going around”: Setzer, “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller’s Novel, Catch-22,” p. 55.
ibid., p. 56.
“I wanted to see what was happening”: “World War II Writers Symposium,” p. 161.
“[The] smell of romance”: ibid., p. 179.
“I saw it as a war of necessity”: ibid., p. 186.
“Medium level bombing of bridges”: This and all subsequent quotes taken from the “History [of the] 488th Bombardment Squadron, 340th Bombardment Group” are from a copy of the document sent to the author by Daniel Setzer.
“People think it’s a joke”: “World War II Writers Symposium,” p. 150.
“had dysentery all the time”: ibid., p. 146.
“[H]alf the squadron was inundated”: Setzer, “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller’s Novel, Catch-22,” p. 32.
“Seven planes [were holed]”; “Vandermuelen died”: ibid., p. 45.
“I’m cold”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 178.
“sickly attempts”: ibid.
“Ferrara … had [already] assumed in my memory”; “They were trying to kill me”: ibid., pp. 178, 181.
“This period was one of ordinary activity”: Daniel Setzer, “Raid on the Settimo Road Bridges,” p. 22. Setzer’s article is based on Roger Juglair and Silvana Miniotti, Ponte San Martino: Martirio di un paese valdostano. Setzer’s translation of Juglair and Miniotti’s account, along with his additional research and commentary, is the most detailed English-language version of what happened at Pont-Saint-Martin. It is posted online at http://home.comcast.net/~dhsetzer/Settimo.pdf.
“I’m not aware of any of our consciences
ever being bothered”: “World War II Writers Symposium,” p. 162.
“bombing a totally undefended village”; “Dunbar … dropped his bombs”: Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961), pp. 325, 330.
“men [were] … apprehensive”: Setzer, “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller’s Novel, Catch-22,” pp. 48–49.
“The first American soldiers [marched into] Rome”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 176.
“[F]ellow fliers were coming back from Rome”: Joseph Heller, rough draft of “Innocents Abroad,” p. 16, Joseph Heller Archive.
“most valuable phrase”: ibid.
“[We] had horse-drawn cabs”: ibid.
“On the second day of my first leave there”: Heller, Closing Time, pp. 229–30.
“Killing time between meals”: This and all subsequent quotes about Rome are taken from Heller, rough draft of “Innocents Abroad,” pp. 16–21.
“Once upon a time”: For this and other details about the legend of the Lucky Little Bell of San Michele, see “The 57th Fighter Group: The Lucky Little Bell of San Michele,” posted at warwingsart.com/12thAirForce/luckybell.html.
“Because we carried no bombs”; “It’s okay,”: Heller, Now and Then, pp. 184–85.
“I have not been able to get an answer”: Daniel Setzer in an e-mail to the author, July 9, 2009.
“Many of the crews”: This and subsequent War Diary entries cited in Setzer, “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller’s Novel, Catch-22,” p. 58.
“two chaste beginners”; “huge and invisible divide”: Heller, Now and Then, pp. 169, 185.
“There were flies in inflamed eyes”: This and all subsequent quotes about Cairo, Naples, and shipboard experiences are taken from Heller, rough draft of “Innocents Abroad,” pp. 24–25, 30–31.
5. “I DON’T LOVE YOU ANY MORE”
“[T[here were[n’t] many young men who came out of World War II”: “World War II Writers Symposium” at the University of South Carolina, April 12–14, 1995, in Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook 1995, ed. Matthew Bruccoli (Farmington Hills, MI: Thompson Gale, 1996), p. 180.
His flight record for March 1945: Joseph Heller, individual flight record, March 1945: Joseph Heller Archive, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.
“great number”: This and subsequent quotes about the returnees are from History of the 2533rd AAF Base Unit (Pilot School, Prim-Basic) at Goodfellow Field, San Angelo, Texas, p. 46.
“name band”: Flight Time 3, no. 46 (1945): 2.
“courtesy patrols”; “military discipline of personnel at this station”: ibid., 63.
“My mother got cold feet”: This and subsequent comments about her parents are from Erica Heller in an e-mail to the author, May 31, 2009.
“Trains that made stops at most every small town”: David Wood in an e-mail to the author, June 3, 2009.
“It was Shirley’s mother who [really] took the initiative”: Joseph Heller, Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 197.
“V-E Day”: Michael Dorman and DeQuendre Neeley, “New Yorkers Remember V-E Day,” posted at chicagotribune.com/topic/ny-history-ww2ved2,0,1025579.story.
“without foundation”: Flight Time 3, no. 28 (1945): 2.
“The State Department has made public”: Flight Time 3, no. 46 (1945): 2.
Later, he claimed he left Texas in mid-May: Heller, Now and Then, pp. 55–56; “World War II Writers Symposium,” p. 153.
Chad Dull: Dull’s opinion expressed in conversation with the author, Goodfellow Field, August 10, 2009.
“[One] weekend … an order arrived”: Heller, Now and Then, pp. 55–56.
His individual flight record confirms: Joseph Heller, individual flight record, May 14, 1945, Joseph Heller Archive.
“a spell of beautiful weather”; “passed away of attrition”: Heller, Now and Then, pp. 55, 56.
“When we went on the Parachute Jump”; “felt with sadness”: ibid., p. 57.
“Overnight, I was”: ibid., p. 189.
“I cannot recall a single expression of outrage”: “World War II Writers Symposium,” p. 168.
“I really honestly believe”: ibid., p. 169.
“I was a very happy civilian”; “[O]nce we were in formation”: ibid. pp. 161, 162.
“purposely” cruel: This and all other quotes from “I Don’t Love You Any More,” as well as Heller’s comment in the contributor’s notes from Story magazine, are in Heller, Catch as Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings, ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli and Park Bucker (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), pp. 1–8.
“[I]t [was] based on things I knew nothing about”; “malign and histrionic”; “convention”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 189.
“most appreciative audience”: This and all other quotes from Barbara Gelb are taken from Adam Sorkin, ed., Conversations with Joseph Heller (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993), pp. 189, 193, 198.
“very elegant, though understated”: Dolores Karl in conversation with the author, April 24, 2009.
“privileged”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 192.
“Dottie and Barney were an interesting couple”: Jerome Taub in an e-mail to the author, January 8, 2010.
“knew the difference between sirloin steak and top sirloin”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 205.
There was at all times a degree of competition”: Israel Goldstein, My World as a Jew, vol. I (New York: Herzl Press, 1984), p. 261.
“initial step toward the definitive solution”; “sufferance ha[d] been the badge”: ibid., pp. 170, 171.
“was a lot of drinking”; “one of Joe’s relatives”: Jerome Taub in an e-mail to the author, January 4, 2010.
“The motives for my decision”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 193.
6. WORDS IN A BOX
“We feel compelled to say no to it”: Ben Yagoda, About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made (New York: Scribner, 2000), p. 235.
“He had been kept close to home while his father was alive”: Joseph Heller, “World Full of Great Cities,” in Catch as Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings, ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli and Park Bucker (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), p. 63.
David Seed notes the many direct echoes: David Seed, The Fiction of Joseph Heller: Against the Grain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), p. 14.
a “distaste for everything that had happened to him in the war”; “isn’t fun any more”: Ernest Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home” and “The End of Something,” in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (New York: P. F. Collier and Son, 1938), pp. 243, 208.
“wanted to do something for the United States”; “If your mother dies”: Carey McWilliams, “Watts: The Forgotten Slum,” The Nation, August 30, 1965; posted at thenation.com/doc/19650830/mcwilliams.
“neon-lighted slum”: This and subsequent quotes by Raymond Chandler are from David Wyatt, Five Fires: Race, Catastrophe, and the Shaping of California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 161–62.
“I wanted to find [things] out”: Joseph Heller, Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 194.
“I am embarrassed to confess”: ibid., p. 200.
“And thus a new weapon, the pure science method”: Joseph Heller, “Bookies, Beware,” in Catch as Catch Can, ed. Bruccoli and Bucker, p. 11.
“fiction is not merely a diversion”: letter from Joseph Heller to Whit Burnett, November 22, 1962, Archives of Story Magazine and Story Press, 1931–1999, Princeton University Manuscripts Division, Princeton University Library.
“I am wondering, too, if the treatment of a flier”: letter from Whit Burnett to Joseph Heller, August 22, 1946, Archives of Story Magazine and Story Press.
“I [then] had thoughts of becoming a playwright”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 202.
“held as sacred”: ibid.
&
nbsp; “I couldn’t deny to myself that I really had an imagination”: Charles Ruas, Conversations with American Writers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), pp. 147–48.
“[H]e pointed out my faults to me”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 208.
“wrote perfect short stories”: ibid.
“a meager, short fellow”: ibid.
“[H]e would sit down at his typewriter”: ibid.
“[I]t’s a pity … we [didn’t] meet then”: Joseph Heller, remarks made at the “1999 James Jones Literary Society Symposium,” Long Island University (Southampton campus), June 1999; posted at jamesjonesliterarysociety.org/jheller.htm.
“That should have steeled me against unkind critiques”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 212.
“long[s] for people who were real”; “Darling, something terrible has happened”: Joseph Heller, “The Death of a Dying Swan,” in Catch as Catch Can, ed. Bruccoli and Bucker, pp. 213, 214.
“I was [always] taking too long to begin”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 209.
“thinking and writing in terms of peace”: The Atlantic Monthly, March 1948, p. 52.
In later years, he would claim his best work was generated: See, for example, Ruas, Conversations with American Writers, p. 155.
“My Uncle David was a sober man”: This and all other quotes from “Castle of Snow” are from The Atlantic Monthly, March 1948, pp. 52–55.
“vanguard of the much-heralded and long awaited ‘post-war generation’”: Martha Foley, foreword, Best American Short Stories 1949 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949), p. vii.
7. NAKED
“inept and immature”; “[a] tome, [a] masterwork”; “book with tremendous brea1dth”: Charles Ruas, Conversations with American Writers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), p. 150.
“We were about the same age”: George Plimpton, “Joseph Heller,” The Paris Review 15 (1974); reprinted in Adam J. Sorkin, ed., Conversations with Joseph Heller (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993), p. 116.
“War novels were coming into vogue”: Ruas, Conversations with American Writers, p. 150.
“Mailer was very good as an illusionist”: ibid.
Just One Catch Page 58
