- Person
- Joseph Heller
- Lived
- 1923–1999
- Field
- Novelist
- From
- American
The story
By 1981 Joseph Heller was one of America's best-known novelists. Catch-22 had sold millions of copies, Something Happened had topped the bestseller lists, and he had recently published Good as Gold. Then, on Sunday 13 December 1981, he was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare disease of the peripheral nerves that left him temporarily paralysed.
He was admitted to the intensive care unit of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York the same day and remained there, bedridden, for weeks. At his worst he was too weak to move and almost too weak to breathe on his own. On 26 January 1982 he was well enough to be transferred to the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, where the long work of recovery began.
With determination and the help of others, Heller regained his strength and made a full recovery from a disorder that can be fatal. Friends played a large part. Mel Brooks, Mario Puzo, Dustin Hoffman, George Mandel and above all his close friend Speed Vogel kept him company and helped him through the months of rehabilitation.
After finishing his novel God Knows, Heller turned to his first full-length non-fiction book. No Laughing Matter, published in 1986, was written with Speed Vogel in alternating chapters. It recounts the illness and recovery in great detail, describing the support and companionship that his friends gave him. The book turned a frightening medical ordeal into a warm portrait of friendship.
Heller kept writing for the rest of his life. He published the novel Picture This in 1988, Closing Time, a sequel to Catch-22, in 1994, and the memoir Now and Then in 1998, and completed a final novel shortly before his death in 1999. No Laughing Matter remains an encouraging account for anyone facing a long illness, showing how friendship and humour can sustain a person through the hardest months.
Why it matters
Heller's honest account of serious illness and recovery offered hope and humour to readers facing their own health struggles.
About Joseph Heller
Coney Island-born bombardier turned novelist whose Catch-22 skewered the absurdity of war and bureaucracy – and gave the English language a phrase for every no-win situation.
More about Joseph Heller
- Joseph Heller gave English the phrase 'Catch-22'Joseph Heller's 1961 novel Catch-22 gave English, and other languages, a lasting term for a no-win dilemma created by absurd rules.
- Joseph Heller taught creative writing at Yale and CCNYAfter Catch-22, Joseph Heller taught creative writing at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, and later at the City College of New York.
- Joseph Heller wrote an anti-war play during VietnamJoseph Heller's play We Bombed in New Haven, written in 1967, carried an anti-war message to Yale and then to Broadway during the Vietnam War.
- Joseph Heller retold King David's life in 'God Knows'In God Knows (1984), Joseph Heller gave voice to the biblical King David, after first drawing on his Jewish roots in Good as Gold (1979).
Sources
- Joseph Heller Wikipedia
- Joseph Heller Encyclopedia.com
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.