Now and Then

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.