| Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here Contributor(s): Heller, Joseph (Author) |
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ISBN: 0375700552 ISBN-13: 9780375700552 Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group OUR PRICE: $15.20 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 1999 Annotation: The demented Army Air Force of Catch-22, the lethal business world of Something Happened, the dysfunctional family of Good as Gold - all these, we have assumed, had their roots in Joseph Heller's own past. Now, more than thirty-five years after the explosion of Catch-22 into the world's consciousness, Heller gives us his life. Here is his Coney Island childhood, down the block from the world's most famous amusement park. It was the height of the Depression, it was a fatherless family, yet little Joey Heller had a terrific time - on the boardwalk, in the ocean (dangerously out of his depth), playing follow-the-leader in and out of local bars, even in school. Then a series of jobs, from delivering telegrams (on his first bike) to working in a navy yard - until Pearl Harbor, the air force, Italy. And after the war, college (undreamed-of before the G.I. Bill), teaching, Madison Avenue, marriage, and - always - writing. And finally the spectacular success of Catch-22, launching one of the great literary careers. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Literary Figures - Biography & Autobiography | Historical - Biography & Autobiography | Personal Memoirs |
| Dewey: B |
| LCCN: 97049658 |
| Physical Information: 0.8" H x 5.5" W x 8.5" (0.80 lbs) 272 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1930's - Chronological Period - 1940's - Chronological Period - 1950's - Chronological Period - 20th Century - Cultural Region - Mid-Atlantic - Cultural Region - Northeast U.S. - Demographic Orientation - Urban - Geographic Orientation - New York |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: From the author of two of our most legendary novels, Catch-22 and Something Happened, comes a slyly funny, vastly revelatory memoir that is at once a loving evocation of a lost America and an exploration of the frontier where life turns into literature. Now and Then follows Joseph Heller from his fatherless childhood on the boardwalks of Depression-era Coney Island, where he grew up amid the rumble of the Cyclone and the tantalizing aroma of Mrs. Shatzkin's knishes. It offers a dizzying bombardier's-eye view of the sky over wartime Italy, where Heller encountered the characters and incidents he would later translate into Catch-22. It depicts a writer coming to terms with both rejection and celebrity. Here, in short, is a life filled with incident and insight, recollected with subversive humor, exquisite timing, and a fine appreciation for the absurd. |
