Just One Catch

by Tracy Daugherty

  “Shirley was very important to Joe”: Robert A. Towbin in conversation with the author, April 26, 2009.

  “Joe was very shaken by his divorce”: Barbara Gelb in conversation with the author, August 2, 2010.

  “Right after she was divorced from Joe”: Audrey Chestney in conversation with the author, January 5, 2010.

  “I was alone for the first time in my life”: Graham Bridgstock, “Happiness Is My Catch Number 2,” Evening Standard (London), February 7, 1995.

  “I had been very unsettled”: McCall, “Something Happened,” p. 28.

  “girlfriends”: Barbara Gelb in conversation with the author, August 2, 2010.

  “The chemistry was plain dumb luck”: McCall, “Something Happened,” p. 29.

  “There is a reluctance to proceed”: Heller, Now and Then, p. 226.

  17. GO FIGURE

  “none of the customary feelings”: Joseph Heller and Speed Vogel, No Laughing Matter (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), p. 120.

  “dismayed to discover”: ibid., p. 155.

  “If I’d known in my youth”: Joseph Heller, God Knows (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), p. 56.

  “I had decided to put Joe on the cover”: Art Cooper, 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).

  “Like cunnilingus”: Heller, God Knows, p. 65.

  “Some Promised Land”: Heller, ibid., p. 40.

  “Apparently written on the principle”: Earl Rovit, review in Library Journal, September 15, 1984, p. 1772.

  “very tired”; “shallow”: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, “God Knows,” New York Times, September 19, 1984.

  “repetitious, often annoying”: Richard Cohen, “Old Testament Time Warp,” Washington Post Book World, September 30, p. 1.

  “disappointing hodgepodge”: Paul Gray, “The 3,000-Year-Old Man,” Time, September 24, 1984, pp. 74–75.

  “slap in the face”: Curt Suplee, “Catching Up with Joseph Heller,” Washington Post, October 8, 1984.

  “God Knows is junk”: Leon Wieseltier, “Schlock of Recognition,” The New Republic, October 29, 1984, pp. 31–33.

  “Look, I’ve adjusted to this”: Suplee, “Catching Up with Joseph Heller.”

  “The abundantly talented Joseph Heller”: Mordecai Richler, “He Who Laughs Last,” New York Times Book Review, September 23, 1984, p. 1.

  “becomes the head of a family”: David Seed, The Fiction of Joseph Heller: Against the Grain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), p. 160.

  “O my son Absalom!” Heller, God Knows, p. 327.

  “I was always faithful”: ibid., p. 104.

  Apparently, at one point, Heller had planned to write an erotic romp along the lines of Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint or John Updike’s Couples, but wound up folding the erotic material into God Knows.

  “perfumed [his] bed with aloes”: ibid., p. 107.

  “David, it’s enough already”: ibid., p. 327.

  “Shakespeare’s method”: David M. Craig, Tilting at Mortality: Narrative Strategies in Joseph Heller’s Fiction (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997), p. 147.

  “[I]t is the capacity for change”: Judith Ruderman, Joseph Heller (New York: Continuum, 1991), p. 107.

  “That’s bullshit, Samuel”: ibid., p. 56.

  “To the Rabbis”: John Friedman and Judith Ruderman, “Joseph Heller and the ‘Real’ King David,” Judaism 36, no. 3 (1987): 298.

  “I want my God back”: Heller, God Knows, p. 353.

  “There are such musical, soothing phrases”: Seed, The Fiction of Joseph Heller, p. 171.

  “I could do without the city”: Shirley Horner, “About Books,” New York Times, March 1, 1987; posted at nytimes.com/1987/03/01/nyregion/about-books.html?pagewanted=all.

  “bulked-up”; Henry Dasko, “Kosínski’s Afterlife,” posted at xtract.art.pl/daskografia/x/2004-Afterlife.html.

  “As far as a literary scene”: Horner, “About Books.”

  “Media and communications conglomerates”: Dasko, “Kosínski’s Afterlife.”

  “Since that time”: Trip Gabriel, “Call My Agent!” New York Times Magazine, February 19, 1989; posted at nytimes.com/1989/02/19/magazine/call-my-agent.html?pagewanted=all.

  “It is the easiest thing”: ibid.

  “I wanted the book”: LuAnn Walther in conversation with the author, January 26, 2010.

  “[made] books” [like] “Spielberg [made] movies”; “mogul mode”; “only breakfast meeting where no food is served”: Marion Maneker, “Now for the Grann Finale,” posted at nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/5618/.

  “back-and-forth exchange[s]”; “first time I was to edit [Joe]”: Gerald C. Gross, Editors on Editing (New York: Grove Press, 1994), p. 271.

  “You mustn’t sound mean”: Faith Sale’s note on rough-draft page of No Laughing Matter, Joseph Heller Archive, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.

  “I’m not that way”: This quote and the following exchange with Speed and Valerie is from Henry Kisor, “Joseph Heller’s Pen Pal: Author and Crony Tell Two Humorous Views of Road to Recovery,” Chicago Sun-Times, February 23, 1986; posted at highbeam.com.

  “Here’s an entry for you”; “You can use this”: Joseph Heller’s notes on rough-draft pages of No Laughing Matter, Joseph Heller Archive.

  “the sort of person who regards life as a roller coaster”: Sanford Pinsker, Understanding Joseph Heller (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991), p. 135.

  “an altered mental state”: Jay I. Meltzer, “Long Island Book,” East Hampton Star, July 3, 1986.

  “Consider how much [artifice]”: Seed, The Fiction of Joseph Heller, pp. 182–83.

  “With a peaceful smile”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, pp. 333–34.

  “I did no such thing”: ibid., p. 334.

  “[T]his is an intoxicating experience”: This and subsequent quotes regarding Heller’s visit to the Air Force Academy are from Andrew H. Malcolm, “‘Catch-22’: Cadets Hail a Chronicler of the Absurd,” New York Times, October 6, 1986.

  “monumental artifact of contemporary American literature”: John W. Aldridge, “The Loony Horror of It All: ‘Catch-22’ Turns 25,” New York Times, October 26, 1986.

  “stupefies … sickens … infuriates”: Philip Roth quoted in ibid.

  “[T]he novel’s first and greatest sequel”: J. Hoberman, “Only One Catch—Social Influence of the Book Catch-22,” posted at findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n2_v33/ai_16315374/.

  “Joe is one of the greatest writers of my generation”; “If all the rumors”; “I will only confirm”: Edwin McDowell, “‘Catch-22’ Sequel by Heller,” New York Times, April 8, 1987; posted at nytimes.com/1987/04/08/books/catch-22-sequel-by-heller.html?pagewanted=1. See also David Straitfeld, “Catch-23,” New York, September 12, 1994, p. 103.

  “write good novels”: This and subsequent quotes from the interview with Heller are from Charles Ruas, Conversations with American Writers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), pp. 172, 179.

  “badly about the other”: Erica Heller in an e-mail to the author, March 28, 2010.

  “Stanley Cohen and Toby Molenaar”: On Heller’s first outing with Valerie Humphries, when doctors at the Rusk Institute allowed him to stay in his own apartment, Cohen was the friend with whom the couple dined. In France’s Loire Valley, Cohen and Molenaar owned a fifteenth-century mill that had once belonged to the sculptor Alexander Calder. They also owned a house in Sag Harbor, at which Molenaar created a spectacular garden.

  “I was helpless”: This and Heller’s subsequent remarks about his courtship of Valerie are from Marian Christy, “Joseph Heller: Getting Back to Wellness,” Boston Globe, February 4, 1987; posted at, highbeam.com.

  “I’m in the twilight of my career”: K
evin Haynes, “Contemplating Joseph Heller,” W, September19–26, 1988.

  “[W]riting … has this strange quality”: Plato, Phaedrus, trans. W. C. Helmbold and W. G. Rabinowitz (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), p. 69.

  “I like to think of the books I write as being interesting in themselves”: Charles T. Powers, “Joe Heller, Author on Top of the World,” Los Angeles Times, March 30, 1975.

  “If you’re a guy who has a wife and children”: Jeffrey Goldberg, “Puzo Knows,” New York, July 29, 1996, p. 40.

  “[T]here’s … something contradictory in what I say”: Betty Sue Flowers, ed., Bill Moyers: A World of Ideas (New York: Doubleday, 1989), p. 37.

  “To a country whose economic health depended on sea voyages”: Joseph Heller, Picture This (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1988), p. 116.

  “reputation had dimmed”: ibid., p. 17.

  “From Athens to Syracuse”: ibid., p. 208.

  “A man cannot expect to make money out of the community”: ibid., pp. 70–71.

  “[T]here was [no] tolerance”: ibid., p. 26.

  “Aristophanes was writing [satirically]”: ibid., p. 176.

  “In what I hope is an amusing way”: This and subsequent quotes from the Moyers interview are from Flowers, ed.: Bill Moyers, pp. 28–37.

  embittered, sassy Mark Twain: Robert M. Adams, “History Is a Bust,” New York Times Book Review, September 11, 1988, p. 9.

  “most endearing quality”: Richard Raynor, “Another Mission Flown; Author of Catch-22, Joseph Heller,” The Times (London), October 19, 1998.

  “[I]t represents very spaced out writing”: Robert M. Adams, “History Is a Bust,” p. 9.

  “[t]hought-provoking”: cited in the ad copy of the paperback edition of Picture This (New York: Ballantine Books, 1988).

  “It’s true, as Dr. Johnson put it”: Jonathan Yardley, “Musings Minus the Muse; From Joseph Heller, Flat Philosophizing,” Washington Post Book World, August 31, 1988.

  “We have picked up a word from the Greeks”: Walter Goodman, “Heller Contemplating Rembrandt,” New York Times, September 1, 1988; posted at nytimes.com/1988/09/01/books/books-of-the-times-heller-contemplating-rembrandt.html.

  “had a devastating effect on me”: Straitfeld, “Catch 23,” p. 102.

  “Very few complex good books”: ibid., p. 103.

  18. THE NEW WORLD

  “Is [the spa] sanitary?”; “I didn’t know you’re a writer”: Sidney Offit, Friends, Writers, and Other Countrymen (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008), pp. 240–41.

  “She [is] a person”; “Like Browning’s ‘Last Duchess’”: Heller and Vogel, No Laughing Matter, p. 148.

  “I still use fifty dishes”: This and subsequent remarks about Heller’s eating habits at home are from Graham Bridgstock, “Happiness Is My Catch Number 2,” Evening Standard (London), February 7, 1995.

  “I became aware of the old island here”: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925), p. 182.

  “Boy, this guy really likes to read books by Joseph Heller!”: Skip Blumberg in an e-mail to the author, May 9, 2009.

  Regis Philbin; “I acted like I didn’t know who he was”; “Stephen King has been in here three times”: Diane Ketcham, “About Long Island: Hamptons Bookstores Take Extra Steps for Hometown Writers,” New York Times, September 10, 1995; posted at nytimes.com/1995/09/10/nyregion/about-long-island-hamptons-bookstores-take-extra-steps-for-hometownwriters.html.

  “Writers out here are like earthworms”: This and subsequent quotes about the Hamptons, unless otherwise noted, are from Anthony Haden-Guest, “Out Here in the Hamptons: Snapshots of a Literary Life,” New York, September 1, 1975, pp. 43–47.

  Of course, Long Island had a history: For a detailed summary of Long Island’s attraction for writers, see Constance Ayers Denne, “Writers of the East End: Responses to a Special Place,” transcript of a lecture delivered at the East Hampton Library, August 1998; posted at easthamptonlibrary.org/history/lecture/19980828.pdf.

  “[E]very summer, I think Great Gatsbys are giving big parties”: Joseph Heller speaking on the program “Great Scott,” PBS NewsHour, September 27, 1996; transcript posted at pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment.october96/fitz_9-27.html.

  “a successful writer”: ibid.

  “bumps he had taken in his life”: This and subsequent remarks by Bruce Jay Friedman were 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).

  “people my age are either portly or dying”; “He likes coffee”; “He’s my favorite”: Diane Ketcham, “Meeting with a Group of Cronies to Chew the Fat, but There’s a Catch,” New York Times, May 18, 1997; posted at nytimes.com/1997/05/18/nyregion/meeting-with-a-group-of-cronies-to-chew-the-fat-but-theres-a-catch.html.

  “color of lobelia”; “She’d be happy even if she was a Kurd”: Sally Vincent, “Portrait: Catch-94,” The Guardian, September 24, 1994; Carole Mallory, “The Joe and Kurt Show,” Playboy, May 1992, posted at vonnegutweb.com/vonnegutia/interviews/int_heller.html.

  Mostly, he went for the food: A source who wishes to remain anonymous related this anecdote to the author in an email, April 1, 2010.

  Artists and Writers Softball Game: For a lively description of this annual event, and many other Hamptons people, places, and incidents, see Dan Rattiner, In the Hamptons (New York: Harmony Books, 2008), pp. 332–44.

  “downright Byzantine”: Florence Fabricant, “At a Gathering of Top Chefs, the Food Gets Star Billing,” New York Times, September 5, 1990; posted at nytimes.com/1990/09/05/garden/at-a-gathering-of-top-chefs-the-food-gets-star-billing.html.

  “Yeah, he lived the celebrity life”: Robert A. Towbin in conversation with the author, April 26, 2009.

  One night, at a billionaire’s party: Famously, Vonnegut commemorated this event in a poem published in the May 16, 2005, issue of The New Yorker.

  “Valerie was a bit of a dipsy-doodle”: Florence Aaron in conversation with the author, May 29, 2009.

  “for a transitory enchanted moment”: Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, p. 182.

  19. CLOSING TIME

  “This is no way for any writer to cap a career”: This and all other quotes regarding the publication of Closing Time, unless otherwise noted, are from David Straitfeld, “Catch-23,” New York, September 12, 1994, pp. 102–05.

  he would write a nonfiction book for them: See Edwin McDowell, “Book Notes: A ’93 Sequel to Catch-22,” New York Times, February 27, 1991; posted at nytimes.com/1991/02/27/books/book-notes-768091.html.

  “maternal and nurturing”; “Well, she lied [to me]”: Karen Hudes, “Epic Agent: The Great Candida Donadio,” Tin House 6, no. 4 (2005): 163.

  She was often inebriated; “She seemed so grief-stricken”: ibid., pp. 166–68.

  “dealt with her kindly but firmly”: Robert Gottlieb in conversation with the author, August 29, 2010.

  “… in the hospital, Yossarian dreamed of his mother”: Joseph Heller, Closing Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 19.

  “When people our age speak of the war”: ibid., p. 11.

  “At 4:30 I stood contemplating the place”: Ken Miller’s research notes for Closing Time, Joseph Heller Archive, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.

  “I’m keeping my distance from the publisher”: Straitfeld, “Catch-23,” p. 104.

  “I look good”: Margarita Fichtner, “Heller Takes a Chance and Resurrects Yossarian,” Albany Times, October 2, 1984.

  “I hate that title”: Mark Lawson, “Joey Heller’s Happy Ending,” The Independent, September 25, 1994; posted at independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/joey-hellers-happy-ending.html.

  her father was “around”: Erica Heller in an e-mail to the author, February 11, 2010.

  “to punctuate a sentence at work”: ib
id.

  “[A]n atrocity”: Carole Mallory, “The Joe and Kurt Show,” Playboy, May 1992; posted at vonnegutweb.com/vonnegutia/interviews/int_heller.html.

  “I’m a narcissist”: Straitfeld, “Catch-23,” p. 104.

  “It was always easy to accept who I was”: Itabari Njeri, “Joseph Heller: The Jewish Novelist Explains Just Why It Wasn’t Easy to Become a Jewish Novelist,” Los Angeles Times, January 13, 1988; posted at articles.latimes.com/1988–01–13/news/vw-23881_1_joseph-heller.

  “more [ambitions] than any one human”: Heller’s remark published in Voices and Visions (promotional catalog for the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Study Center), posted at rockefellerfoundation.org/uploads/files/o.

  “The evening ended quietly”: Heller’s rough-draft notes for a 1992 article in Forbes FYI, Joseph Heller Archive.

  His brother Lee had died: Lee Heller died in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 28, 1992.

  “They could possibly shit on it”: Straitfeld, “Catch-23,” p. 104.

  “There’s no question”: ibid., p. 105.

  “We’ve positioned it as a bestseller”: ibid.

  “There comes a time”: ibid., p. 104.

  “In Catch-22, Heller chose his targets carefully”: Ben Macintyre, “The Perkiest of Pessimists,” The Times (London), October 21, 1994.

  “richness of narrative tone”: William H. Pritchard, “Yossarian Redux,” New York Times Book Review, September 25, 1994; posted at nytimes.com/books/98/02/15/home/heller-closing.html.

  “Score one for Joseph Heller”: Carlin Romano, “Catching Up with ‘Catch-22’ in ‘Closing Time,’” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 2, 1994.

  “What I sense in most of these reviews”: Straitfeld, “Catch-23,” p. 105.

  “In … twenty more years”: Heller, Closing Time, p. 13.

  “combin[e] the intensity of the [humorous] moment”: Robert Polhemus, Comic Faith (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 18–19.

  “stimulated … by … optimism”: Heller, Closing Time, p. 461.

  “no illusions”: ibid., p. 462.

  “It’s my masterpiece”: Jerry McQueen in an e-mail to the author, July 29, 2009.