Just One Catch
A Biography of Joseph Heller
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The New York Times bestselling writer Tracy Daugherty illuminates his most vital subject yet in this first biography of the Catch-22 author Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller was a Coney Island kid, the son of Russian immigrants, who went on to great fame and fortune. His most memorable novel took its inspiration from a mission he flew over France in WWII (his plane was filled with so much shrapnel it was a wonder it stayed in the air). Heller wrote seven novels, all of which remain in print. Something Happened and Good as Gold, to name two, are still considered the epitome of satire. His life was filled with women and romantic indiscretions, but he was perhaps more famous for his friendships—he counted Mel Brooks, Zero Mostel, Carl Reiner, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Mario Puzo, Dustin Hoffman, Woody Allen, and many others among his confidantes. In 1981 Heller was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a debilitating syndrome that could have cost him his life. Miraculously, he recovered. When he passed away in 1999 from natural causes, he left behind a body of work that continues to sell hundreds of thousands of copies a year.
Just One Catch is the first biography of Yossarian's creator.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Joseph Heller (1923 1999) hit the jackpot with Catch-22, his first novel, published 50 years ago. Now we learn nearly everything we wanted to know about the man behind that trailblazing depiction of WWII that, as Daugherty notes, would prove prophetic for the Vietnam generation. Daugherty (Donald Barthelme's biographer) serves up a breezy, entertaining, and well-researched biography worthy in tone and scope of his subject. Daugherty is good at setting the scene of Heller's early lower-middle-class Jewish life amid the surreal glow of Brooklyn's Coney Island and, later, writing about his years as a bombardier with its questions of the amorality of bombing missions that caused civilian casualties. He examines the pressures of sudden fame and fortune (leading to divorce after nearly four decades of marriage), and the devastating consequences of Guillain-Barr syndrome. Daugherty is especially adroit at describing the high life Heller led amid a more prosaic career in academia, and at outlining dealings with well-known publishers and agents. Daugherty seems to have read everything connected with his subject to give a somewhat spit-shined but mostly fair portrait of the artist who dared to bring a humorous sensibility to the tragedy of modern warfare. 16 pages of b&w photos.
