The True Story Of Catch 22

In 1961, Joseph Heller completed his first novel, Catch-22. This book of chaotic originality, wicked humor, and sobering insights into WWII, became a classic, a masterpiece of fiction. Heller was a B-25 bombardier with the 340th Bomb Group during the war but, after publication, he usually chose to deny any connection between his novel's unforgettable characters and his war mates. In 2012, however, another book was published. The True Story of Catch-22, written by Patricia Chapman Meder, daughter of the final commander of Heller's bomb group proved that all was not as it seemed and that profit/loss czar Milo Minderbinder, frantic Hungry Joe, severed Kid Sampson, and a bevy of Joseph Heller's richly created characters were, in fact, based upon the true-life men of that 340th which was based on Corsica in 1944. Here is that book's Companion! The True Story of Catch-22 ILLUSTRATED is the visual compliment and partner to The True Story. In rich, vibrant color the full-blown characters of Heller's novel surge forward to face their true-life counterparts. The illustrated fictional characters colorfully lighting up each left page come to life in the manner of Catch-22, sometimes irreverent, sly, rarely subtle, and often absurdly funny. In stark contrast, and anchoring the opposing right page, are their rock-steady and combat trained opposite numbers each offering unique first person narratives. Their sepia-toned pages are enriched by an abundance of rare and previously unpublished photographs. Its larger 8.5"x11" format does justice to the details of 82 pages of art, photography, and narrative. With the current publication of The True Story of Catch-22 and its colorful Companion, a new perspective has been added as they highlight the missing ingredient in Heller's original novel, that of actual fact. Now, at long last, these two books add the final dimension to the lionized Catch-22.

The real-life companion to the literary classic—written and illustrated by the daughter of the 340th Bomb Group’s commander, Catch-22’s Col. Cathcart. After the publication of his bestselling novel Catch-22, Joseph Heller usually chose to deny that any of his richly drawn characters were based on his actual war mates. However, to those who served with Heller in the 340th Bomb Group, the novel’s characters were indeed recognizable—the hard-drinking, vengeful, and disillusioned Chief White Halfoat; young, sliced-in-half Kid Sampson; shrieking, frenzied Hungry Joe; Col. Cathcart; Gen. Dreedle; Yossarian; and that capitalist supreme, Milo Minderbinder. In this book, written and colorfully illustrated by the daughter of the 340th Bomb Group’s commander, Col. Willis Chapman, we finally encounter the real men and combat missions on which the novel was based. While Heller’s fully developed characters stand solely, solidly, and uniquely on their own merits, The True Story of Catch-22 proves that any resemblance to persons living or dead is, in fact, actual. This three-part book blends fact, fancy, and history with full-blown original illustrations and rare, previously unpublished photos of these daring USAAF flyers and their Corsica-based B-25 Mitchell. Along with descriptions of the 340th’s real wartime experiences, the work includes twelve men of the Bomb Group relating richly told tales of their own. “In these pages it is a great pleasure to finally see the real story behind the fictionalized account, and to be even more impressed.” —Scott Carpenter, NASA astronaut “Heller’s satiric caricatures are here shown to have stemmed from patriotic, courageous, highly decorated airmen who daily performed heroic wartime feats against overwhelming obstacles.” —Library Journal

"Catch-22 was published in 1961, becoming a number-one bestseller in England before American audiences identified with its anti-war sentiments, earning it classic status and prompting a film version in 1970. Heller's dark, satirical novel became so ubiquitous that it initiated the eponymous phrase regarding paradoxical situations. Catch-22 is appreciated for its black humor, extensive use of flashbacks, contorted chronology, countercultural sensibilities, and bizarre language structures. With current trends and political climate considered, this volume revisits this classic text for a contemporary audience." --

A book to challenge the status quo, spark a debate, and get people talking about the issues and questions we face as a country!

A darkly comic and ambitious sequel to the American classic Catch-22. In Closing Time, Joseph Heller returns to the characters of Catch-22, now coming to the end of their lives and the century, as is the entire generation that fought in World War II: Yossarian and Milo Minderbinder, the chaplain, and such newcomers as little Sammy Singer and giant Lew, all linked, in an uneasy peace and old age, fighting not the Germans this time, but The End. Closing Time deftly satirizes the realities and the myths of America in the half century since WWII: the absurdity of our politics, the decline of our society and our great cities, the greed and hypocrisy of our business and culture -- with the same ferocious humor as Catch-22. Closing Time is outrageously funny and totally serious, and as brilliant and successful as Catch-22 itself, a fun-house mirror that captures, at once grotesquely and accurately, the truth about ourselves.

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.

Bob Slocum was a promising executive. He had an attractive wife, three children, a nice house, and as many mistresses as he desired. His life was settled and ordered; he had conformed and society demanded he be happy - or at least pretend to be, But the pretence was becoming more and more difficult, as Slocum's discontent grew into an overwhelming sense of desolation, frustration and fear. And then something happened. . .

THROUGHOUT ERICA HELLER’S LIFE, when people learned that Joseph Heller was her father, they often remarked, “How terrific!” But was there a catch? Like his most famous work, her father was a study in contradictions: eccentric, brilliant, and voracious, but also mercurial, competitive, and stubborn, with a love of mischief that sometimes cut too close to the bone. Being raised by such a larger than- life personality could be claustrophobic, even at the sprawling Upper West Side apartments of the Apthorp, which the Hellers called home—in one way or another—for forty-five years. Yossarian Slept Here is Erica Heller’s wickedly funny but also poignant and incisive memoir about growing up in a family—her iconic father; her wry, beautiful mother, Shirley; her younger brother, Ted; her relentlessly inventive grandmother Dottie—that could be by turns caring, infuriating, and exasperating, though anything but dull. From the forbidden pleasures of ordering shrimp cocktail when it was beyond the family’s budget to spending a summer, as her father’s fame grew, at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Erica details the Hellers’ charmed—and charmingly turbulent— trajectory. She offers a rare glimpse of meetings with the Gourmet Club, where her father would dine weekly with Mel Brooks, Zero Mostel, and Mario Puzo, among others (and from which all wives and children were strictly verboten). She introduces us to many extraordinary residents of the Apthorp, some famous—George Balanchine, Sidney Poitier, and Lena Horne, to name a few—and some not famous, but all quite memorable. Yet she also manages to limn the complex bonds of loyalty and guilt, hurt and healing, that define every family. Erica was among those present at her father’s bedside as he struggled to recover from Guillain-Barré syndrome and then cared for her mother when Shirley was diagnosed with terminal cancer after the thirty-eight-year marriage and intensely passionate partnership with Joe had ended. Witty and perceptive, and displaying the descriptive gifts of a born storyteller, this authentic and colorful portrait of life in the Heller household unfolds alongside the saga of the family’s moves into four distinctive apartments within the Apthorp, each representing a different phase of their lives together—and apart. It is a story about achieving a dream; about fame and its aftermath; about lasting love, squandered opportunities, and how to have the best meal in Chinatown.