In this memoir, Joseph Heller takes the reader on a journey back to his upbringing in a poor, predominantly Jewish neighbourhood in Coney Island, through his World War II experiences as a bombadier in the US Air Force in Italy, to his current life as an internationally acclaimed author.
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Catch-18 was the intended title of Joseph Heller's most famous novel, Catch-22, which the author renamed to avoid confusion with Leon Uris's bestseller Mila 18. It's hard now to imagine anyone ever mistaking a single line written by Heller for the work of someone else; his atmospheric new memoir grabs readers' attention with the same plain, powerful prose; blunt, but oddly tender, humour; and striking ability to recreate a particular time and place that distinguishes all his fiction.
The brief, haunting section on his air force service confirms that Heller drew on his own experiences for Catch-22. But it's his boyhood home, Brooklyn's Coney Island in the 1920s and 1930s, that prompts Now and Then's best pages. You can practically taste the cheap ice cream and hot knishes, hear the shrieks of kids on the amusement park's hurtling rides, see the facades of long-demolished apartment buildings and smell the sand- and-salt odour wafting from the beach. The dignity and emotional reticence of Heller's widowed mother, the security he felt in an impoverished but safe immigrant neighbourhood, come to life just as vividly.
Scattered anecdotes about famous friends (including Irwin Shaw and James Jones) are also evocative, and occasional comments about his novels' themes reveal Heller to be a better self-critic than most writers. But it's his affectionate tribute to a vanished New York that most clearly displays this popular author's narrative skills and engaging personality.--Wendy Smith --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Joseph Heller was born in Brooklyn in 1923. He began his career with short stories but won immediate acclaim with CATCH-22 in 1961. He went on to write SOMETHING HAPPENED, GOOD AS GOLD, GOD KNOWS, PICTURE THIS, CLOSING TIME (the sequel to CATCH-22) and PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AS AN OLD MAN. Heller died in December 1999.
--This text refers to an alternate
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Now and Then is a richly detailed and highly evocative stroll down memory lane for Joseph Heller. Probably the most relaxed of all his literary output -almost as though the man was taking a holiday from his complexities. Heller wanders, in free-flowing form, from his childhood adventures clear through early jobs, war and his beginnings as a writer. The author's inate cynicism - though a little tempered with age - is, thankfully, still intact and ensures that the journey is never dull. An fascinating and candid backtrack by one the finest, who, in telling his own story also reveals much about his generation. Fast moving, immensly readable and refreshingly free of cloudy sentiment, Now and Then is a indespensible companion piece to Heller's fictional work, and is made all the more poignant by his recent passing.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you are like me, you are tempted by autobiographies of writers whose work you love. You hope to get that extra bit of insight that will expand your appreciation of their writing. Usually, these hints come from long passages about writing and inspiration concerning those works. In Now and Then, Mr. Heller is more laconic about that sort of information than many writers are. On the other hand, he is very generous in explaining his personal psychology, demons, work habits, and writing blocks. You will come to appreciate that Mr. Heller is a man beset by some important demons who overcomes them with wry wit that delights almost everyone. The book's weakness is that you will perhaps get more knowledge about Coney Island in the 1930s than you had counted on. If you are from Coney Island, on the other hand, you will revel in all of the myriad details and will want to give this book more than five stars.
Mr. Heller takes great pleasure in his success, his career, his recognition, and his accomplishments. He takes equal delight in his ability to use language with precision and erudition. The autobiography allows him plenty of opportunities to focus on all of these pleasing elements. To make this self-indulgence more palatable to the reader, he pokes a bit of fun at himself with gentle irony.
But all of this seeming self-indulgence is really procrastination to delay dealing with the painful parts of his life story. His father's death while he was young, and later exposure to the horrors of war in World War II left a deep stamp on his emotional make-up. The book describes an important catharsis as Mr. Heller identifies what he learned from psychoanalysis and the pscyhological testing that his employers applied.
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By Michael H
Format:Paperback
I cannot recommend this book too highly. A friend bought it for me when it came out and I had no idea why - I'd never read Catch-22 or anything else by Heller. But from the first pages I was intruigued and delighted - it describes a childhood and early life lived in New York's Coney Island, and all the travails of young life and first jobs. A complete delight. Treat yourself - or a friend - to this wonderful book.
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
To all Joseph Heller fans this book will be a delight. A warming accout of a childhood in Coney Island, a young bombadier and a novelist.He tells us of real life events which are often mirrored in episodes from his novels.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Not exactly a poorly written memoir, just fairly dull. Almost half is spent on Heller's happy (but relentlessly uneventful) childhood growing up in Coney Island during the late 1930s. The book picks up during the second half with Heller's experiences during the war and then returning to New York (of which, the last chapter about a teenage heroin addict is truely powerful,) but I found this book mostly a slog.
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