“[I had heard that Heller] … had the reputation”: This and subsequent quotes from the conversation between Berkman and Heller are from Meredith Berkman, “A Family Gets Together After Closing Time,” Newsday, October 5, 1994.
“How would you like to be a seventy-one-year-old certified American literary heavyweight”: Christopher Buckley, “Gotterdammerung-22,” The New Yorker, October 10, 1994, pp. 104, 109.
“I think you know me”: This quote and subsequent exchanges between Heller and Buckley are from their correspondence, Joseph Heller Archive.
“I can’t believe it”: This and subsequent quotes and details regarding the landing of the B-25 on Long Island are from Diane Ketcham, “Long Island Journal: Writer Outgrows His B-25,” New York Times, January 1, 1995, posted at nytimes.com/1995/01/01/nyregion/long-island-journal-488095.html; Ellen Kaiser, “It’s Official,” Dan’s Papers, September 13, 1996; Irene Keller, “Catch ’94,” Dan’s Papers, December 16, 1994; Renee Schilhab, “Memories of a Wartime Friend,” Southampton Press, December 15, 1994.
“[We’re] not about to let you go through all this yourself”: Erica Heller in an e-mail to the author, February 21, 2010.
“It is painful for me to recall how my wife was”: Joseph Heller, Something Happened (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), p. 103.
“Call her”: This and subsequent quotes and details regarding Shirley Heller’s last days are from Erica Heller, draft of a memoir, Yossarian Slept Here, provided to the author on February 11, 2010.
“[H]e showed up the night before with his sister Sylvia”: Erica Heller in an e-mail to the author, February 11, 2010.
“It feels wonderfully strange”: David Zurawik, “Heller Impressed with TV’s ‘Catch-22,’” Baltimore Sun, September 14, 1996.
20. WHEN THEY SPEAK OF THE WAR
“We worked at what we could”: Joseph Heller, rough draft of Now and Then, Joseph Heller Archive, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.
“to lose about ten of the pounds”: This quote and subsequent exchanges between Heller and Buckley in this chapter are from their correspondence, Joseph Heller Archive.
“I have a feeling”: Heller’s remarks were made during an interview on The Charlie Rose Show, October 24, 1994; see charlierose.com/guest/view/3857.
“I’ve become a dyspeptic recluse”: Michael Hirsch, “Brooklyn People,” Bay News, August 3, 1998.
There were those who: anecdote provided to the author by an anonymous source in February 2010.
One night, at a dinner party: ibid.
Friends thought Valerie seemed jealous: ibid.
“the fact of Speed”: Erica Heller in an e-mail to the author, February 19, 2010.
“Life is pretty good”: John Cornwall, “What’s the Catch?” The Sunday Times (London), September 18, 1994.
“I’m gripped by the somber realization”: Sylvia Rothchild, “In a New Book, Joseph Heller Remembers Where He Comes From: Despite Oxford Fellowship, Accent on Brooklyn,” Jewish Advocate, April 23, 1998; posted at highbeam.com.
“I don’t think he knows himself”: Paula Span, “Catch-23; For Joseph Heller, A Late-Life Summing Up,” Washington Post, September 29, 1994.
“I feel like the malevolent witch at the party”: This and subsequent remarks from Heller’s talk, “The Literature of Despair,” were delivered at “The F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary Celebration,” September 24–26, 1996, University of South Carolina; text posted at sc.edu/fitzgerald/centenary.proceedings.html.
“[T]he game is over”: D. T. Max, “The Twilight of the Old Goats,” Salon, May 1997; posted at salon.com/may97/goats970516.html.
“amazing similarity of characters”: This quote and Heller’s and Gottlieb’s comments regarding the controversy over the Falstein novel are from Michael Mewshaw, “New Questions Dog ‘Catch-22’; Joseph Heller Defends Originality of ’61 Classic”: Washington Post, April 27, 1998.
In a follow-up article on the matter, after Heller’s death, Michael Mewhaw concluded that “there are indeed fundamental similarities between Catch-22 and The Sky is a Lonely Place.… While they don’t rise to the level of plagiarism, they do suggest that Heller might have been aware of Falstein’s work.… [He may have] written an oblique homage to Falstein.… Of course, in a universe of pure contingency where chaos reigns … it’s perhaps perfectly possible that two men … would write hauntingly similar novels.… Talk about Catch-22!” See Mike Mewshaw, “Too Easy to Catch Heller Out?” Jerusalem Post, December 31, 1999.
“books are widely disparate”: Mel Gussow, “Critic’s Notebook: Questioning the Provenance of the Iconic ‘Catch-22,’” New York Times, April 29, 1998; posted at nytimes.com/1998/04/29/books/critic-s-notebook-questioning-the-provenance-of-the-iconic-catch-22.html.
“capitalist cool”: This was an FYI slogan.
“old-fashioned ideas”: Sally Vincent, “Portrait: Catch-94,” The Guardian, September 24, 1994.
“strange turbulent undercurrents”: This and subsequent quotes from the interview are in Lynn Barber, “Bloody Heller,” The Observer, March 1, 1998; posted at guardian.co.uk/books/1998/mar/01/fiction.josephheller.
“No. We don’t have one”: Molly Watson, “Releasing a Rat into the New York Jet Set: Ted Heller, Son of Joseph,” Evening Standard (London), February 9, 2000; posted at highbeam.com.
“Every time [Warhol mentioned] a famous name”: Ted Heller’s comment was made during an interview with Terry Gross for National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” (WHYY-FM), March 23, 2000.
“I sort of have a reputation”: ibid.
“So we were sitting by Joe’s pool one day”: Deborah Karl in conversation with the author, April 18, 2009.
“People would phone”: Dolores Karl in conversation with the author, April 24, 2009.
“instead of shying away”: This and subsequent quotes and details regarding the 1999 cruise to Norway’s Arctic region are from Diane Armstrong, “Heller Frozen Over,” The Guardian, March 27, 1999; posted at guardian.co.uk/theguardian/1999/mar/27/weekend7.weekend3.
“What next, then?”; “The artificer who lives long enough”: Joseph Heller, Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), pp. 19, 20–21.
“incredibly expressive”: Lois Smith Brady, “Weddings: Vows; Erica Heller, Ronald van den Boogaard,” New York Times, November 28, 1999; posted at nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res= 9B01EEDF143FF93BA15752C1A96F958260.
“That evening he was sweet-tempered and subdued”: Arthur Gelb quoted in Salon, text posted at salon.com/people/obit/1999/12/13/Heller.
“expressed horror”: George Mandel’s remarks 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).
“Joe was on the phone”: Valerie Heller’s remarks were written for “Joseph Heller: A Celebration.”
“That night … he became my patient again”: ibid.
“Valerie called us at about five a.m.”: Dolores Karl in conversation with the author, April 24, 2009.
“Oh God, this is a calamity”: Duncan Campbell, “Joseph Heller Is Dead at the Age of 76,” The Guardian, December 14, 1999; posted at guardian.co.uk/books/1999/dec/14/josephheller.
“[As a novelist,] he wasn’t top of the chart”: Nicholas Roe, “Indiscreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie; Nicholas Roe Discovers That the Prolonged and Amazing Creative Life of John Updike Is Alive and Well,” Canberra Times (Australia), January 29, 2000.
“I will miss reading the books he didn’t write”: Rosemary Herbert, “Heller Remembered for His Philosophical Dimension,” Boston Herald, December 14, 1999.
“I could hardly believe my eyes”: Erica Heller in an e-mail to the author, February 19, 2010.
“When we left the grave site”: Jerry McQueen in an e-mail to the author, July 29, 2009.
EPILOGUE: CL
EANING HOUSE
“Two weeks [after my father died]”: Ted Heller’s comments were made during an interview with Terry Gross for National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” (WHYY-FM), March 23, 2000.
called the novel “embarrassing”: Michiko Kakutani, “Joseph Heller’s Valedictory Holds a Mirror to Himself,” New York Times, May 30, 2000.
“sardonic little abdication address”: Tim Adams, “What’s the Catch?” The Observer, July 30, 2000; posted at guardian.co.uk/books/2000/jul/30/fiction.josephheller.
“slightest but scariest”: David Gates et al., “Newsweek’s Best Novels of 2000,” Newsweek, December 28, 2000; posted at newsweek.com/2000/12/27/newsweeks-best-novels-of-2000.html.
“There is something bleakly bracing”: “Briefly Noted,” The New Yorker, July 17, 2000, p. 81.
Heller’s “vision” was “tragically in synch”: John Grant, “Gangs with Guns: Milo Mindbender in Afghanistan,” Counterpunch, June 11–12, 2010; posted at www.counterpunch.org/grant06112010.html.
“Even when it’s fouling its own nest”: William Wiles, “What Catch-22 Tells Us about the BP Spill,” posted at www.newstatesman.com/blogs/cultural-capital/2010/06/syndicate-milo-share-pension.
“Heller is among the novelists of the last [few] decades who matter”: Thomas Edwards, The New York Review of Books, April 5, 1979, p. 20.
“[Catch-22] still blows me away”: Keith Staskiewicz, “Carl Hiaasen on Movie Adaptations, Dostoevsky, and Buying Historical Novels,” posted at shelf-life.ew/com/2010/08/12/carl-hiaasen-star-siland.
“Joseph Heller found”: Adam Mars-Jones, review of Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes, in The Observer, August 15, 2010; posted at guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/15/matterhorn-karl-marlantes-vietnam-war.
“Veterans of the Second World War”: Jeffrey Toobin, “After Stevens,” The New Yorker, March 22, 2010, p. 43.
“[E]xactly who owns the rights”: Mokoto Rich, “Legal Battles Over E-Book Rights to Older Books,” The New York Times, December 13, 2009; posted at nytimes.com/2009/12/13/business/media/13ebooks.html.
“9/11 … Saddam Hussein’s hanging”: Christopher Buckley, “Catch-2009,” New York Times, December 12, 2009; posted at nytimes.com/2009/12/12/opinion/12buckley.html.
“In the early 1980s, I was cleaning houses”: Margaret Dawe in an e-mail to the author, July 10, 2009.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
FICTION BY JOSEPH HELLER
Catch-22. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961.
Something Happened. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.
Good as Gold. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979.
God Knows. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.
Picture This. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1988.
Closing Time. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Catch as Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings. Edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Park Bucker. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.
MEMOIRS BY JOSEPH HELLER
No Laughing Matter, coauthored with Speed Vogel. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986.
Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.
PLAYS BY JOSEPH HELLER
We Bombed in New Haven. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968.
Catch-22: A Dramatization. New York: Samuel French, 1971.
Clevinger’s Trial. New York: Samuel French, 1973.
MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAYS BY JOSEPH HELLER
Sex and the Single Girl, with David R. Schwartz. Warner Bros., 1964.
Casino Royale (uncredited). Columbia Pictures, 1967.
Dirty Dingus Magee, with Tom Waldman and Frank Waldman. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1970.
INTERVIEWS WITH JOSEPH HELLER
Sorkin, Adam J., ed. Conversations with Joseph Heller. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993.
UNCOLLECTED PROSE BY JOSEPH HELLER
“Too Timid to Damn, Too Stingy to Applaud.” New Republic, July 1962, 23–24, 36.
“How I Found James Bond.” Holiday, June 1967, 123–25.
BOOKS ABOUT JOSEPH HELLER
Bloom, Harold, ed. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2001.
Craig, David M. Tilting at Mortality: Narrative Strategies in Joseph Heller’s Fiction. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997.
Kiley, Frederick, and Walter McDonald, eds. A “Catch-22” Casebook. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973.
Merrill, Robert. Joseph Heller. Boston: Twayne, 1987.
Nagel, James, ed. Critical Essays on ‘Catch-22.’ Encino, California: Dickenson, 1974.
———, ed. Critical Essays on Joseph Heller. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984.
Pinsker, Sanford. Understanding Joseph Heller. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.
Potts, Stephen W. From Here to Absurdity: The Moral Battlefields of Joseph Heller. San Bernardino, California: Borgo Press, 1995.
Ruderman, Judith. Joseph Heller. New York: Continuum, 1991.
Scotto, Robert M., ed. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22: A Critical Edition. New York: Delta, 1973.
Seed, David. The Fiction of Joseph Heller: Against the Grain. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.
Woodson, Jon. A Study of Catch-22: Going Around Twice. New York: Peter Lang, 2001.
ONLINE
Setzer, Daniel. “Historical Sources for the Events in Joseph Heller’s Novel, Catch-22. home.comcast.net/~dhsetzer.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARTICLES
Bruccoli, Matthew J., and Park Bucker, eds. Joseph Heller: A Descriptive Bibliography. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2002.
Eller, Jonathan R. “Catching a Market: The Publishing History of Catch-22.” Prospects 17 (1992): 475–525.
Keegan, Brenda M. Joseph Heller: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1978.
Scotto, Robert M. Three Contemporary Novelists: An Annotated Bibliography of Works by and about John Hawkes, Joseph Heller, and Thomas Pynchon. New York: Garland, 1977.
Weixmann, Joseph. “A Bibliography of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.” Bulletins of Bibliography 31 (1974): 32–37.
SELECTED CRITICAL BOOKS WITH SECTIONS OR CHAPTERS ON JOSEPH HELLER
Aichinger, Peter. The American Soldier in Fiction, 1880–1963. Des Moines: Iowa State University Press, 1975.
Bier, Jesse. The Rise and Fall of American Humor. New York: Henry Holt, 1968.
Bryant, Jerry H. The Open Decision: The Contemporary American Novel and Its Intellectual Background. New York: Free Press, 1970.
Burgess, Anthony. The Novel Now: A Guide to Contemporary Fiction. New York: W. W. Norton, 1967.
Dickstein, Morris. Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction, 1945–1970. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Harris, Charles B. Contemporary American Novelists of the Absurd. New Haven: College and University Press, 1971.
Hauck, Richard Boyd. A Cheerful Nihilism: Confidence and the Absurd in American Humorous Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971.
Karl, Frederick. American Fictions 1940–1980. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
Kazin, Alfred. Bright Book of Life: American Novelists and Storytellers from Hemingway to Mailer. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973.
Kostelanetz, Richard, ed. On Contemporary Literature. New York: Avon, 1964.
Miller, Wayne Charles. An Armed America, Its Face in Fiction: A History of the American Military Novel. New York: New York University Press, 1970.
Moore, Harry T., ed. Contemporary American Novelists. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965.
Olderman, Raymond M. Beyond the Waste Land: The American Novel in the 1960’s. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972.
Podhoretz, Norman. Doings and Undoings: The Fifties and After in American Writing. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1964.
Richter, D. H. Fable’s End: Completeness and Closure in Rhetorical Fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
&
nbsp; Scott, Nathan A., ed. Adversity and Grace: Studies in Recent American Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968.
Tanner, Tony. City of Words: American Fiction, 1950–1970. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
SELECTED CRITICAL ARTICLES ON JOSEPH HELLER
Aldridge, John W. “The Deceits of Black Humor.” Harpers, March 1979, 115–18.
Aubrey, James R. “Heller’s ‘Parody on Hemingway’ in Catch-22.” Studies in Contemporary Satire 17 (1990): 1–5.
———. “Major –de Coverly’s Name in Catch-22.” Notes on Contemporary Literature 18, no. 1 (1988): 2–3.
Beidler, Philip. “Mr. Roberts and American Remembering; or, Why Major Major Major Major Looks Like Henry Fonda.” Journal of American Studies 30, no. 1 (1996): 47.
Bertonneau, Thomas F. “The Mind Bound Round: Language and Reality in Heller’s Catch-22.” Studies in American Jewish Literature 15 (1996): 29–41.
Blues, Thomas. “The Moral Structure of Catch-22.” Studies in the Novel 3 (Spring 1971): 64–97.
Bradbury, Malcolm. Introduction to Catch-22. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
Burhans, Clinton S., Jr. “Spindrift and the Sea: Structural Patterns and Unifying Elements in Catch-22.” Twentieth Century Literature 19 (1973): 239–50.
Caciedo, Alberto. “You Must Remember This: Trauma and Memory in Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 46, no. 4 (2005): 357–68.
Cheuse, Alan. “Laughing on the Outside.” Studies on the Left 3 (1963): 81–87.
Costa, Richard Howard. “Notes from a Dark Heller: Bob Slocum and the Underground Man.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 23, no. 2 (1981): 159–82.
Craig, David. “Rewriting a Classic and Thinking about a Life: Joseph Heller’s Closing Time.” CEA Critic 58, no. 3 (1996): 15–30.
Davis, Gary W. “Catch-22 and the Language of Discontinuity.” Novel 12, no. 1 (1978): 66–77.
Day, Douglas. “Catch-22: A Manifesto for Anarchists.” Carolina Quarterly 15, no. 3 (1963): 86–92.
Doskow, Minna. “The Night Journey in Catch-22.” Twentieth Century Literature 12 (1967): 186–93.
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