Novelist, born in New York City, USA. He served in the US Army Air Force in World War 2, and studied at New York, Columbia, and Oxford universities. His wartime experience formed the background for his first book, Catch 22 (1961), which launched him as a successful novelist. The anti-war plot centred on the view that US airmen on dangerous combat missions must be considered insane, but if they seek to be relieved on grounds of mental derangement, they find themselves ineligible, since such a request proves their sanity. Hence Catch 22 has come to signify any logical trap or double bind. A sequel, Closing Time, appeared in 1994. His other works include Something Happened (1974), God Knows (1984), Picture This (1988), and the autobiographical Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here (1998).
Joseph Heller| Born: |
May 1, 1923 Brooklyn, New York |
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| Died: |
December 12, 1999 |
| Occupation(s): | novelist |
| Influenced: | Robert Altman |
Joseph Heller (May 1, 1923 – December 12, 1999) was an American satirist best remembered for writing the satiric World War II classic Catch-22. The book was partly based on Heller's own experiences.
Heller is widely regarded as one of the best post-World War satirists.
Biography
(1923-1960) Early life and pre-Catch-22' occupations
Heller was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of poor Jewish parents. His Russian-born father, Isaac Heller, a bakery truck driver, died in 1927 because of a botched ulcer operation. After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1941, Heller joined the Twelfth Air Force. In 1949 Heller received his M.A.
(1961-1970) Catch-22
"All over the world, boys on every side of the bomb line were laying down their lives for what they had been told was their country, and no one seemed to mind, least of all the boys who were laying down their young lives. (from Catch-22)Heller sold his first stories as a student. At that time Heller was employed as a copywriter at a small advertising agency. The same issue carried a chapter from Jack Kerouac's On the Road, under a pseudonym.)" (from Now and Then, 1998) The novel went largely unnoticed until 1962, when its English publication received critical praise.
Catch-22 was originally written (and scheduled for publication) as Catch-18. Just before the scheduled publication date of Heller's novel, another publisher brought out Leon Uris's novel Mila 18, unrelated to Heller's work but also with a military theme. Heller's novel was hastily retitled before publication.
Catch-22 was not a success when first published, but a few months later S. Nichols emphasized the absurdity of war, and as Heller, he rejected American militarism. After writing Catch-22, Heller worked on several Hollywood screenplays, such as Sex and the Single Girl, Casino Royale, and Dirty Dingus Magee, contributing to the TV show "McHale's Navy" under the pseudonym Max Orange. In the 1960s Heller was involved with the anti-Vietnam war protest movement.
Catch 22 Controversy
In April 1998, Lewis Pollock wrote to The Sunday Times for clarification as to "the amazing similarity of characters, personality traits, eccentricities, physical descriptions, personnel injuries and incidents" in Catch-22 and a novel published in England in 1951. Falstein's novel was available two years before Heller wrote the first chapter of Catch-22 (1953) while he was a student at Oxford. Heller stated in The Washington Post: "My book came out in 1961[;] I find it funny that nobody else has noticed any similarities, including Falstein himself, who died just last year" (April 27, 1998).
(1974-2000) Other works
Heller waited 13 years before publishing his next novel - the darker and sombre Something Happened (1974). Heller's play-within-a-play, We Bombed in New Haven (1968), was written in part to express his protest against the Vietnam war.
Heller's later works include Good As Gold (1979), where the protagonist Bruce Gold tries to regain the Jewishness he has lost. Readers hailed the work as a return to puns and verbal games familiar from Heller's first novel.
No Laughing Matter (1986), written with Speed Vogel, was a surprisingly cheerful account of Heller's experience as a victim of Guillain-Barré syndrome. During his recuperation Heller was visited among others by Mario Puzo, Dustin Hoffman and Mel Brooks. Now And Then (1998) is Heller's autobiographical work, evocation of his boyhood home, Brooklyn's Coney Island in the 1920s and 1930s. "It has struck me since - it couldn't have done so then - that in Catch-22 and in all my subsequent novels, and also in my one play, the resolution at the end of what narrative there is evolves from the death of someone other than the main character."
Heller had two children by his first marriage. In 1989 Heller married Valerie Humphries, a nurse he met while ill. Heller died of a heart attack at his home on Long Island on December 13, 1999. His last novel, Portrait Of The Artist As An Old Man, (2000) published posthumously, was about a successful novelist who seeks an inspiration for his book.
Works
Novels
Catch-22 (1961) Something Happened (1974) Good As Gold (1979) God Knows (1984) No Laughing Matter with Speed Vogel (1986) Picture This (1988) Closing Time (1994) Portrait Of The Artist As An Old Man (2000)Short stories
Catch As Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings (2003) Three Short Stories Of Utter AnnoyanceAutobiographies
Now And Then (1998).Trivia
Joseph Heller was friends with fellow satiric author (and World War II veteran and coeval) Kurt Vonnegut, who wrote a review on his Something Happened. In Timequake Kurt Vonnegut cites Joseph Heller's Catch-22 as a 'must read'. Heller is mentioned in rapper Canibus' Poet Laureate II, in which he states, "In the words of Joseph Heller, 'I learned how to write better.'"| Works by Joseph Heller |
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Novels: Catch-22 ǀ Something Happened ǀ Good As Gold ǀ God Knows ǀ No Laughing Matter ǀ Picture This ǀ Closing Time ǀ Portrait Of The Artist As An Old Man
Short Stories : Catch As Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings ǀ Three Short Stories Of Utter Annoyance |
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