Just One Catch

by Tracy Daugherty

He took a course taught by Lionel Trilling: The course was titled American Literature Since 1870.

  Trilling had become the first Jew to get tenure: Several faculty members opposed Trilling’s appointment on the grounds that his Jewish upbringing would hamper his ability to understand fully English literature’s Anglo-Saxon roots. See Norman Podhoretz, Breaking Ranks: A Political Memoir (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 11.

  “literature is the human activity”: Louis Menand, “Regrets Only: Lionel Trilling and His Discontents,” posted at newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/09/80929crat_atlarge_menand?

  “in large part … Jewish middle-class”: ibid.

  “never possible for a Jew”: ibid.

  a “horror”; “[T]here was just nobody there”: Adam Kirsch, “Lionel Trilling and Allen Ginsberg: Liberal Father, Radical Son,” posted at vqronline.org/articles/2009/summer/kirsch-trilling-ginsberg.

  “panic-stricken kids in blue jeans”: ibid.

  “Most of the students were veterans”: Untitled article, The Owl: The Alumni Newsletter of the School of General Studies (Columbia University), Fall/Winter 2006, p. 24.

  “acquire … standards”: Joseph Heller, Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 211.

  “We can scarcely understand postwar fiction”: Morris Dickstein, Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction, 1945–1970 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002) p. 25.

  “were the diminished heirs”: ibid., p. 26.

  “[F]rom the fate of a people”; “civilization rent asunder”: Joseph Freeman, introduction, Proletarian Literature in the United States (New York: International Publishers, 1935), p. 8.

  “something that has never been done before in this country”: John Tebbel and Mary Ellen Zuckerman, The Magazine in America, 1741–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 343.

  “Running parallel to many combat/war novels”: Frederick R. Karl, American Fictions, 1940–1980 (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 95.

  “[I]n the 1930s … the pulp fiction world”: “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. 189.

  “that type of writing was going to go out of style”: Sorkin, ed., Conversations with Joseph Heller, p. 160.

  “popular novelist of today”: This and all subsequent Evans quotes are from Bergen Evans, “This Thing Called Love,” The Atlantic Monthly, February 1948, pp. 26–29.

  “[Americans] have [now] been told”: Tebbel and Zuckerman, The Magazine in America, 1741–1990, p. 252.

  “[I]f Rockwell drew cliché situations”: ibid., p. 175.

  “It was fortunate … [he] did not live”: ibid., p. 176.

  “transact our necessary business”: “The Atlantic Report on the World Today,” The Atlantic Monthly, February 1948, p. 20.

  “Not for one hundred years”: Martha Foley, foreword, Best American Short Stories 1948 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), p. vii.

  “an original contribution of nothing new”: Joseph Heller, manuscript of Catch-22, chapter 8; unpaginated: Joseph Heller Collection, Brandeis University Libraries, Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections Department, Waltham, Massachusetts.

  “I’m surprised [it] was approved”: Chet Flippo, “Checking in with Joseph Heller,” in Rolling Stone, April 16, 1981; reprinted in Sorkin, ed., Conversations with Joseph Heller, p. 234.

  “I’m not sure that my motivations”: ibid., p. 234.

  “[H]er parents found delight in watching me eat”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 205.

  “gushed in praise”: ibid., p. 204.

  “Superheroes allowed adolescents”; “It had been a long, nerve-wearing run”: Gerard Jones, Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book (New York: Basic Books, 2004), p. 232.

  “All the guys think I’ll make a million dollars”: George Mandel’s story is recounted in Mario Puzo, The Godfather Papers and Other Confessions (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1972), pp. 30–31.

  “You’re not going to England”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 192.

  “I didn’t even wait to see if my master’s thesis”: Jonathan Sale, “Passed/Failed: Joseph Heller,” The Independent, March 11, 1999; posted at independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/passedfailed_joseph_heller_1079745.html.

  “cut corners”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 192.

  “When I had the Fulbright”; “war mentality”: Sorkin, ed., Conversations with Joseph Heller, pp. 56–57.

  “very good progress”; “was impressed by the place”: David Seed, The Fiction of Joseph Heller: Against the Grain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), p. 12.

  “I [always] had a distinct sense of the strength of this guy”: Sorkin, ed., Conversations with Joseph Heller, p. 190.

  “I have had no previous teaching experience”: letter from Joseph Heller to Theodore J. Gates, January 31, 1950, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University, College Park, Pennsylvania.

  “I believe I should not encourage you to apply”: letter from Theodore J. Gates to Joseph Heller, February 17, 1950, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  “Although I should prefer to finish the year at Oxford”: letter from Joseph Heller to Theodore J. Gates, March 4, 1950, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  “detailed information on his personality”: letter from Theodore J. Gates to the Director of Placement, Columbia University, March 14, 1950, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  “a very fine appearing young man”: letter from Margaret Morgan to Theodore J. Gates, March 24, 1950, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  Follow-up letters of recommendation: All quotes excerpted by the Columbia University Placement Bureau and included in Joseph Heller’s confidential placement file, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  “I am twenty-seven years old and married”: letter from Joseph Heller to Theodore J. Gates, January 31, 1950, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  “scheduled to arrive in New York”: letter from Joseph Heller to Theodore J. Gates, May 9, 1950, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  “In other words”: letter from Theodore J. Gates to Joseph Heller, May 16, 1950, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  “I am not in the reserves”: letter from Joseph Heller to Theodore J. Gates, July 31, 1950, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  8. TEA AND SYMPATHY

  “In those days, [Penn State] was more of an agricultural school”: Unless otherwise indicated, this and subsequent comments by Frederick Karl are taken from his remarks made at “Joseph Heller: A Celebration,” a memorial service held at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on June 13, 2000. Transcribed by the author from a video recording (courtesy of Erica Heller).

  “Come have lunch”: Dolores Karl in conversation with the author, April 24, 2009.

  “walking on the street”: Erica Heller in an e-mail to the author, May 13, 2009.

  “malfeasance”; “compelled … to show mercy”: Joseph Heller, Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), pp. 162–163.

  “What happened on this spot?”: This anecdote was related to the author by Bob Mason in a conversation on November 3, 2009.

  a World War II drama that never went anywhere: According to David Seed, Twentieth Century–Fox asked Heller if he would like to work on movie scripts; at the time, he was teaching at Penn State. Heller worked with Bernard Oldsey on a script entitled The Tries
te Manuscripts, described by Oldsey as a “hundred-page stripped-down novel functioning as an adaptation script for a movie.” The project came to a halt when Night Train to Trieste and Diplomatic Courier were released; both movies dealt with spies in Trieste near the end of World War II, the subject of Heller and Oldsey’s script in progress. See David Seed, The Fiction of Joseph Heller: Against the Grain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), p. 91.

  “wanted to be honest”; “When you needed him”: Bob and Abby Mason in conversation with the author, November 3, 2009.

  “Top [Nittany] Lion Boxer”: “Al Tapman Receives Goodman Trophy as Year’s Top Lion Boxer,” Penn State Collegian, May 5, 1939.

  “plucky”; “gentlemanly”; “magnificent physical condition”: “Boxing Intercollegiates’ Last Weekend,” Penn State Collegian, March 12, 1939.

  The “old lion in [him]: Charlie O’ Connor, letter in Penn State Collegian, March 17, 1939.

  “You look at the number of Jewish comedy writers”: Norman Barasch in conversation with the author, April 29, 2009.

  “the idea of being charged with something”: Dale Gold, “Portrait of a Man Reading,” Washington Post Book World, July 20, 1969, p. 2.

  “persons who are disloyal to the United States”: “Communists in Government Service, McCarthy Says,” posted at senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Communists_In_Government_Service.htm. See also Robert Griffith, The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1970), p. 49.

  “structure”; epic feeling: Gold, “Potrait of a Man Reading,” p. 2.

  “slangy use of prose”; “flippant approach to situations”: “The Heller Cult,” Newsweek, October 1, 1962, pp. 82–83.

  “blending of the comic and tragic”: W. J. Weatherby, “The Joy Catcher,” The Guardian, November 20, 1962.

  “restores our theater to an art again”: Bruce Weber, “Robert Anderson, Author of ‘Tea and Sympathy,’ Dies at 91,” New York Times, February 10, 2009; posted at nytimes.com/2009/02/10/theater/10anderson.html.

  “Joe said that, in New York”: This and subsequent comments by Bob Mason are from a conversation with the author, November 3, 2009.

  “That play is a fraud”: Weber, “Robert Anderson, Author of ‘Tea and Sympathy,’ Dies at 91.”

  “State Department is infested with Communists”: Griffith, The Politics of Fear, p. 49.

  “conspiracy so immense”: Joseph McCarthy, Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the United States Senate, 1950–1951 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office 1953), p. 215.

  “career destruction”: Unless otherwise indicated, this and subsequent quotes from George Mandel are taken from his remarks at “Joseph Heller: A Celebration.”

  “Jewish hang-ups”: Seed, The Fiction of Joseph Heller, p. 8.

  “only one of my contemporaries”: Morris Dickstein, Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction, 1945–1970 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 32.

  “[At the time,] I could not see myself spending more than two years”: Joseph Heller, remarks made at the James Jones Literary Society Symposium, June 1999; posted at jamesjonesliterarysociety.org/jheller.htm.

  Joe “calculated” that his life was half over: Barbara Gelb, in conversation with the author, August 2, 2010.

  “I have the opportunity at this time”: letter from Joseph Heller to Theodore J. Gates, May 27, 1952, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University, College Park, Pennsylvania.

  “Mr. Heller is an accomplished writer”: letter from Theodore J. Gates to Ben Euwema, June 2, 1952, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  “I don’t hate anybody here”: Nadine Kofman, “Novelist Taught Composition at Penn State in Early 1950s,” Penn State Collegian, October 21, 1974.

  “It is now certain”: letter from Joseph Heller to Theodore J. Gates, March 20, 1953, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  “ability to get along with others”: letter from Lillian M. Farkas to Penn State University, September 1, 1953, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  “honest, dependable, and loyal”: letter from Theodore J. Gates to the Personnel Department at the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, undated, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.

  “He declined”: Stanley Weintraub in an e-mail to Sandra Stelts of the Special Collections Library, Pennsylvania State University, April 23, 2009; e-mail provided to the author by Sandra Stelts on behalf of Mr. Weintraub.

  9. CAUGHT INSIDE

  “Isn’t this the building where they found dead people on the roof?”: Comment posted at ny.therealdeal.com/articles/mann-slated-to-settle-apthorp-lawsuit.

  “This is like the House of Usher”: Frank Bruni, “Dispute at Ritzy Address Is Emblem of NYC Rent Control Debate,” New York Times, April 13, 1997; posted at www.tenant.net/Alerts/Guide/press/nyt/fb041397.html.

  “pigeon feathers”: Michael Idov, “Apoplectic at the Apthorp” posted at www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Apoplectic+at+the+Apthorp.

  The house, finished in 1764: For details on the design of Elmwood Manor, see Ellen Susan Bulfinch, ed., The Life and Letters of Charles Bulfinch, Architect (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1896), pp. 83–84; Kenneth Hafertepe and James F. O’Gorman, American Architects and Their Books to 1848 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001), p. 7.

  “doughty royalist Charles Ward Apthorp”: “End 100-Year Fight Over Apthorp Land,” New York Times, July 24, 1910; posted at query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=l&res=9501E6DB1239E433A2575C2A9619C946196D6CF.

  a “display of horticulture”: Christopher Gray, “The Not-So-Secret Garden in the Apthorp’s Courtyard,” New York Times, July 22, 2007; posted at www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/realestate/22scap.html.

  “She never had a cross word”: “Tenants Mourn Elevator Woman Who in 35 Years Was Never Cross,” New York Times, October 15, 1953; posted at spiderbites.nytimes.com/pay_1953/articles_1953_10_00003.html.

  “I was born at French Hospital”: Erica Heller in an e-mail to the author, April 21, 2009.

  “Erica, for Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony”: Jerome Taub in an e-mail to the author, January 5, 2010.

  “Now here’s how it was”: Shirley Polykoff, Does She … or Doesn’t She? And How She Did It (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), p. 30.

  “Your name is familiar”: ibid., p. 108.

  “gray fedora with a dark band”: Joseph Heller, Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 113.

  “first Gibsons”: ibid., p. 167.

  “going when I came into work”: Art Kramer, “Art Kramer’s WWII Stories: The Birth of the Catches,” posted at www.coastcomp.com/artkramer/catches.html.

  “All the copywriters were writing plays”: Ann Waldron, “Writing Technique Can Be Taught, Says Joseph Heller,” Houston Chronicle, March 2, 1975.

  “Even before 1960”: Mary Wells, “The Truth About ‘Mad Men’ Told by a Real-Life ‘Mad’ Woman,” posted at www.wowowow.com/print/612.

  “[I]t was from the magazine advertisements”: Polykoff, Does She … or Doesn’t She?, p. 10.

  “On the outside”: Martin Mayer, Madison Avenue, U.S.A. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 7.

  “[I]t can truthfully be said”: ibid., p. 8.

  “There was a steam table bar”: Tom Messner in an e-mail to the author, September 2, 2009.

  “[s]urprisingly often”: Mayer, Madison Avenue, U.S.A., p. 9.

  A former employee at BBDO recalls: This information was provided to the author in an e-mail on September 8, 2009, by a person who wishes to remain anonymous.

  According to Advertising Age: Mayer, Madison Avenue, U.S.A., p. 11.

  “I thought it bizarre”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 109.


  “The media people come first”: Mayer, Madison Avenue, U.S.A., p. 15.

  “man’s world”: Jane Maas, Adventures of an Advertising Woman (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986), pp. 21–22.

  “beetle brows”: ibid., p. 22.

  “during the World Series”; “prevailed during business hours”: Heller, Now and Then, pp. 110–11.

  “We were pregnant together”: Audrey Chestney in conversation with the author, January 5, 2010.

  “[There] was a rumor”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 111.

  “Now, here, you see”: ibid., p. 112.

  “slept little and gamboled much”; “distinctive taverns”; “lucky”: George Mandel, Flee the Angry Strangers (1952; reprint, New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003), pp. x, xiii.

  “never could understand artists and writers”; “They had a bunch of creeps come in there”: Roy Thomas, “‘Comics Were Great!’: A Colorful Conversation with Mickey Spillane,” posted at twomorrows.com/alterego/articles/11spillane.html.

  “All [his friends] were ecstatically astonished”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 252.

  “transition between … [a] wail of hopelessness”: Thomas Newhouse, The Beat Generation and the Pop Novel in the United States, 1945–1970 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000), p. 105.

  degraded into pot; “Madison Avenue”: Mandel, Flee the Angry Strangers, p. xiv.

  “Nembutal goofballs and pod”: ibid., p. 164.

  “An old line”: Tom Messner in an e-mail to the author, September 2, 2009.

  “sought people who were funny”: ibid.

  “It took … the Jews”: Wells, “The Truth About ‘Mad Men’ Told by a Real-Life ‘Mad’ Woman,” posted at www.wowowow.com/print/612.

  “World War II vets”: Tom Messner in an e-mail to the author.

  “Cheater’s Night”: Noted in an e-mail to the author on September 8, 2009, by a person who wishes to remain anonymous.

  “girls came to the windows of the dorms”: Dan Wakefield, New York in the Fifties (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), pp. 206–07.

  “Why aren’t [the panty raiders] in the Army”: ibid., p. 207.

  “female contraceptive[s], a plug”: ibid., p. 233.

  “an event of great importance in our culture”: ibid., p. 204.