“an astounding vision of our leaders in Washington”: Leonard Michaels, “Bruce Gold’s American Experience,” New York Times Book Review, March 11, 1979, p. 1.
“softball game in a schoolyard”; “Athletes in skullcaps?”: Heller, Good as Gold, pp. 487–88.
“vivid an anecdote of assimilation as I could find”: “Baseball’s Jewish Accent,” The Economist, January 8, 1994.
“[T]he most repellent character”: Murray N. Rothbard, “The Evil of Banality,” Inquiry, December 10, 1979, pp. 26–28.
“savage caricature”: Podhoretz, Ex-Friends, p. 50.
“primarily a cultural crisis”: Peter Steinfels, The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America’s Politics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979), pp. 55, 58, 64–65.
“When Bruce Gold”: Marshall Toman, “The Political Satire in Joseph Heller’s Good as Gold,” Studies in Contemporary Satire 17 (1990): 6–14.
“broad gauge advisor on domestic policy”; “Don’t words mean anything to you?”: Heller, Good as Gold, p. 164.
“A phrase that really gets to me”: Charlie Reilly, “An Interview with Joseph Heller,” Inquiry, May 1, 1979, pp. 25–26.
“The honeymoon is over for Joseph Heller”: John Leonard, “Good as Gold,” New York Times, March 5, 1979; posted at nytimes.com/books/98/02/15/home/heller-gold.html.
“America … was where Jewish humor fantastically flourished”: Leon Wieseltier, “Shlock of Recognition,” The New Republic, October 29, 1984, p. 31.
“If you want to forget all your troubles”: Robert Alter, Defenses of the Imagination: Jewish Writers and Modern Historical Crisis (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1977), p. 156.
In a piece on contemporary American literature, Alter accuses a number of American writers, including Heller, of exhibiting an “apocalyptic” temperament “reworked” from the “Christian tradition” and exaggerated for absurd and picaresque effects. For a writer like Heller, with a Jewish background, such an attitude is a turning away from “Judaism’s concern with ‘the factual character of human existence,’” Alter says. “There is no room for real people in apocalypses.” See Robert Alter, “The Apocalyptic Temper,” Commentary, June 1966, pp. 61–66.
16. HARD TO SWALLOW
“I [had] never seen [Joe] so ebullient”: Barbara Gelb, “Catch-22 Plus: A Conversation with Joseph Heller,” New York Times, August 28, 1994; posted at nytimes.com/books/98/02/15/home/heller-conversation.html?_r=1.
“I was dry as a bone”: Joseph Heller and Speed Vogel, No Laughing Matter (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), p. 244.
“on good terms with himself”: This and subsequent quotes regarding Jerry McQueen are taken from Barbara Gelb, On the Track of Murder: Behind the Scenes with a Homicide Commando Squad (New York: William Morrow, 1975), pp. 15, 40, 128.
“I thought it was hysterically funny”: Norman Barasch in conversation with the author, April 29, 2009.
recently, he had wasted a morning: This anecdote was related by LuAnn Walther in a conversation with the author, January 26, 2010.
The day was quite chilly: This and subsequent details and quotes regarding the onset of Heller’s condition and his hospital admission are from Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 14, 18–19, 22, 23, 26, 44.
“No. But that’s a lie”: Adam J. Sorkin, ed., Conversations with Joseph Heller (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993), p. 198.
“pleasantly shock[ing]”; “[He] was proud”: Ted Heller in an e-mail to the author, January 15, 2010. Details about Ted’s work in the garment industry are from his interview with Terry Gross for National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” (WHYY-FM), March 23, 2361.
“I’ve got the best story in the Bible”: Joseph Heller, God Knows (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), p. 5.
“I see hopelessness”: Chet Flippo, “Checking in with Joseph Heller,” Rolling Stone, April 16, 1981, pp. 57, 59–60.
“You’ve never written anything as good as Catch-22”: Erica Heller, in conversation with the author, June 25, 2009.
“Sheer, stark terror”: John Cornwell, “What’s the Catch?” in Sunday Times [London], September 18, 1994.
“The Mogul”: Dolores Karl in conversation with the author, April 18, 2009.
“At one point, she got a feminist shrink”: Barbara Gelb in conversation with the author, August 2, 2010.
“I began to feel the married life”: Joseph Heller, rough draft of No Laughing Matter, Joseph Heller Archive, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.
“The problem”: Cornwell, “What’s the Catch?”
“Stress? Maybe”: Joseph Heller, Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 221.
“fatherless Coney Island child”: ibid., p. 216.
“The first time I met my father”: ibid., pp. 217–18.
“You don’t need that dream anymore”: ibid., p. 219.
“All that serious stuff was easy”: ibid., p. 221.
“My theory … about psychoanalysis”: ibid., p. 222.
“never really wanted to live”: Heller, rough draft of No Laughing Matter.
“wish to have a psychiatric medical authority”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 220.
“[H]e bound me to this”: ibid., p. 222.
“How I came to know him”: Judith Ruderman in an e-mail to the author, January 10, 2010.
“intrepidly”; “[Y]ou didn’t really want to do [it]”: Heller, Now and Then, pp. 223–24.
“Joseph Heller took the stand”: “Joe Heller Takes, and Takes the Fifth,” New York Post, October 19, 1983.
Speed Vogel named: Heller, rough draft of No Laughing Matter, Joseph Heller Archive.
“friend [had] once worked at Duke University”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, p. 40.
Erica recalls long, tearful meetings: Erica Heller in conversation with the author, June 25, 2009.
“I changed accountants”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 221.
“have had a falling out”: Edwin McDowell, “Joseph Heller in Dispute with Simon and Schuster,” New York Times, July 1, 1981.
please conduct any further business: Karen Hudes, “Epic Agent: The Great Candida Donadio,” Tin House 6, no. 4 (2005): 158.
“agonize with her”: ibid., p. 166.
“coming around”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, p. 265.
“so concerned about controlling his life”: Sorkin, ed., Conversations with Joseph Heller, p. 189.
“Nothing fails like success”: Joseph Heller, rough-draft notes for God Knows, Joseph Heller Archive. See also God Knows, page 187, where King David says, “Succeeding is more satisfying than success.”
“The older I get”; “I would rather have my wife”: Heller, God Knows, p. 3.
“party circuit”; “What would send me into incipient alcoholism”: Marie Brenner, “Social Studies,” New York, June 22, 1981, p. 27.
“Joseph (Catch-22) Heller”: “Joseph Heller’s Boot-Black,” New York Post, October 1, 1981.
“earnestly believe[d]”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, p. 323.
“I eat only in restaurants these days”: Fred Ferretti, “Eating Out: Their Way of Life,” New York Times, November 20, 1981.
“raping”; “[Heller] announced [to his estranged wife]”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, p. 265.
“interpreters”: ibid., p. 266.
“Rape”; “mischaracterization”: ibid., p. 266.
“[e]xpressed concern over ability”: This and other medical notes are from the Joseph Heller Archive.
“going crazy”: Heller, rough draft of No Laughing Matter, Joseph Heller Archive.
“sudden attack”: “Heller Ill,” New York Post, December 17, 1981.
“Jesus Christ!”: Heller, rough draft of No Laughing Matter, Joseph Heller Archive.
“respiratory parameters … were deteriorating”; “I was agreeing t
o have my throat cut”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 87, 89.
“wife was … on the premises”: ibid., p. 81.
“absolutely shocked”: Cheryl McCall, “Something Happened,” People, August 23, 1982, p. 29.
“I went to Shirley”: Robert A. Towbin in conversation with the author, April 26, 2009.
“What was she going to say”; “I missed my mother”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 76, 81.
“in the only way she knew how”: Heller, God Knows, p. 161.
“Someday in this life”: Heller and Vogel, “No Laughing Matter, p. 113.
“The décor”; “I had more or less assumed his identity”: ibid., pp. 40–41.
Speed had decorated Joe’s living space before. Many years earlier, when Joe first moved his family into the Apthorp apartment, he hung a large painting of Speed’s on the wall. Most of Joe’s family, and most visitors to the apartment, did not particularly care for the painting, which seemed out of place with the rest of the décor, but Joe liked it for that very reason.
“Joe, why haven’t I heard from you?”: ibid., p. 72.
“What’re you doing here again?”: ibid., p. 39.
“Tell me honestly”: ibid., pp. 60–61.
“a hooker returning to the brothel”; “croak”; “If I was in his spot”; “I gotta come clean with you”: Heller and Vogel, rough drafts of No Laughing Matter, Joseph Heller Archive; Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, p. 57.
Mario Puzo was not the only one with a horror of hospitals: Joe hated them, too (recall his traumatic tonsil experience). Norman Barasch, in conversation with the author on April 29, 2009, recounted the following anecdote: “[My] daughter was being treated for leukemia at MD Anderson in Houston. Joe was on a book tour in Dallas—this may have been around 1975. Joe had a friend in Houston, Jerry Argovitz, a dentist, and his wife, Elaine. They’d met at a resort or something. He put us in touch with them and they were very helpful to us. Joe made a detour and came to Houston just to see us. Now, Joe Heller was not an overly sentimental man. But Jerry told me later that he sat downstairs at MD Anderson for half an hour to compose himself to come into the room. When he did, Emily gave him a big smile. It was wonderful. He inscribed a book to us, ‘To the bravest family I know.’”
“simply marvelous”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, p. 75.
“It’s not bad here”: This and subsequent quotes regarding Joe’s move to a private room and his friends’ comments are from ibid., pp. 105, 125, 136–41.
“Great. How much will he pay me?”: Kinky Friedman, ‘Scuse Me While I Whip This Out: Reflections on Country Singers, Presidents, and Other Troublemakers (New York: William Morrow, 2004), p. 139.
“I … thought [she] was a bit tall for me”; “Here comes my good friend”; “Ol’ Ben Lucas”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 137–38, 152.
“taken a turn for the nurse”: Friedman, ‘Scuse Me While I Whip This Out, p. 138.
“NG feedings”: This and other medical notes are in the Joseph Heller Archive.
“I court[ed] her with all my might”; “I’m so glad I met you”; “If there were just two more of us”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 151, 230–31; Joseph Heller, rough draft of No Laughing Matter, Joseph Heller Archive.
“I can’t”: This and the ensuing quotes concerning Valerie’s care of Joe are from ibid., pp. 187, 203, 208.
“Mr. Heller presents mild symptoms of dysarthria”: speech pathology report, Joseph Heller Archive.
“When my swallowing ability came back”: This and subsequent quotes regarding his condition and the removal of the tube are from Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, p. 210.
Joe’s friend Bob Towbin: Active in Democratic Party politics, Towbin was close to Ted Kennedy. In a book called Trader’s Tales, Ron Insana recorded the following anecdote about him: “A few years after Chappaquiddick, Kennedy visited the trading floor at Unterberg, Towbin. First, Towbin spoke to his traders and then asked the senator to say a few words and mingle with the group. After they finished, and Towbin was ushering his good friend to the exit, Bobby Anotolini [who worked for Towbin] asked the group, ‘Hey girls, the senator’s leaving. Anyone need a ride?’” See Ron Insana, Trader’s Tales: A Chronicle of Wall Street Myths, Legends, and Outright Lies (New York: Wiley, 1997), p. 54.
“All that was missing”; “Knowing Valerie’s esteem for the artist Manet”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, p. 188.
“[S]he had an extremely delicate technique”: ibid., p. 210.
“custom-built queen-sized platform bed”; “Then Valerie and I were in the apartment alone”: ibid., p. 213.
“That’s not a good thing to have”: ibid., p. 248.
“Mr. Heller’s [need for] the East Hampton home”: ibid., p. 267.
“Joe felt nervous”: As a joke, Speed had hung a life-size photograph of himself above Joe’s bed in the apartment. It was funny, but unnerving. Later, when Joe moved full-time into the house in East Hampton, he hung the picture of Speed in his guesthouse out back.
“It is fortunate”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 268–69.
“[O]ur inner lives ordain for us”: Heller, God Knows, p. 61.
“with mental cruelty and abandonment”: “Joe Heller Takes, and Takes the Fifth.”
“I was not sure I had a case”: This quote and the subsequent quotes concerning the affidavit and the June 10 hearing are from Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 268–73.
“This is the happiest summer of my life”; “I’ve been lucky most of my life”: McCall, “Something Happened,” pp. 28–29.
“Each time he told me to change the direction”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, p. 294.
“Joe was an entirely different social being”: ibid., pp. 282–83.
“I’ll be grateful to Speed”: McCall, “Something Happened,” p. 28.
“You guys gotta come over for dinner sometime”; “When?”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 282–83.
“Every now and then”: McCall, “Something Happened,” p. 28.
“she [was] the kind of person”: This and subsequent Speed Vogel quotes are from Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 259, 278–79.
“It’s expensive to be sick”: ibid., pp. 287–88.
“Seven or nine days”: ibid., p. 330.
“encourag[ing] [positive pieces]”; “You can’t blame the people who run the Times”: Charles Kaiser, “Friends at the Top of the Times,” posted at charleskaiser.com/kosinski.html. Similarly, Edwin Diamond wrote, “Complaints of cronyism … and backscratching hounded … [Arthur] Gelb.… The Times’ solicitous treatment of cultural figures as disparate as Jerzy Kosinski, Joseph Heller, and Betty Friedan became a running joke among the [Russian] Tea Room crowd.” See Edwin Diamond, Behind the Times (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 324.
“Jewish reporters on the staff”: Arthur Gelb, City Room (New York: Berkley 2003), p. 82.
“What are you worried about?”: This quote and subsequent quotes and details regarding Speed Vogel’s writing are from Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 284–86, 306.
during a stroll on Fire Island: LuAnn Walther in conversation with the author, January 26, 2010.
“interest in other women”: Jerome Taub in an e-mail to the author, January 4, 2010.
“Craig developed a crush on Heller”: Gelb, City Room, pp. 622–23.
“How long ago?”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, p. 301.
“I could get up from a toilet”; “[A]s I saw my time of privileged residence”: ibid., pp. 312–13.
“on the East Hampton party circuit”; “carrying bags”: ibid., p. 314.
he wrote a check for $160: financial records in the Joseph Heller Archive.
“One of the messages”: This and subsequent quotes regarding the incident at the East Hampton house are from Vogel, rough draft of No Laughing Matter, Joseph Heller Archive.
“seem
ed vacant”: Shortly after this incident, Heller—against the wishes of his lawyer and his accountants—took much of his King David advance money and spent it on a late fall–early winter vacation to St. Croix, accompanied by Valerie and Speed. The weather had turned cold in East Hampton. The house seemed haunted, and Heller wanted to prolong the feelings of intimacy, contentment, and celebration he had experienced during the summer. For an account of the St. Croix trip, see Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 326–28, 330.
“Catch-22 may have been the beginning of the end”: This and subsequent Mulcahy quotes are from Susan Mulcahy, “Celebrity Corner,” St. Petersburg Evening Independent, March 12, 1983.
“two unpublished novels”: J. Heller, rough draft of No Laughing Matter, Joseph Heller Archive.
“Sultan of Splitsville”; “A woman is like a Stradivarius violin”; “pluck”: Howard Kurtz, “‘The Sultan of Splitsville’: Lawyer Raoul Lionel, Making Headlines of Heartache,” Washington Post, November 21, 1988.
“Contentment and/or quietude of spirit”: This and subsequent quotes related to the divorce proceedings, unless otherwise noted, are from Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 317–18.
“Mr. Heller is now saying”: Joseph Heller, rough draft for No Laughing Matter, Joseph Heller Archive.
“Trouble with the letter ‘l’”: Joseph Heller, personal medical journal, Joseph Heller Archive.
“was eager to do whatever she could”: This and subsequent quotes by or about Dr. Roberta Jaeger are from documents in the Joseph Heller Archive.
“Mein Kampf of matrimonial warfare”: This and subsequent quotes from or about William Binderman’s exchanges with Joseph Heller in court, unless otherwise noted, are from Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 318–22.
The court transcript reads: transcript in the Joseph Heller Archive.
“value of copyrights [is] so amorphous”: Liz Smith, “Battle Royal” Toledo Blade, April 6, 1984.
“most persuasive person I [have] ever met”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, p. 322.
“Joe’s public life was not good for him”: Dolores Karl in conversation with the author, April 23, 2009.
“Joe went Hollywood in his own inane way”: Audrey Chestney in conversation with the author, January 5, 2010.
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