Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here

by Joseph Heller

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.

The strengths of Now and Then lie in the energy, humor, and mischief that have characterized all of Heller's work, along with the dark undertones that lie beneath them. He brings back a Coney Island that is not only a symbol of fun and fantasy around the world but a vision of what seems today to have been a golden age of carefree innocence. For the first time, he writes about the people and the events, both tragic and hilarious, he was eventually to translate, in Catch-22 , into such memorable characters as Hungry Joe, Orr, Major--de Coverley, Natel's whore, and (of course) Yossarian, and such moving and frightening scenes as the death of Snowden. Now and Then is both an account of a remarkable life and a glimpse into the creative process of a major American writer.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Autobiography, American, New York

260 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Joseph Heller was an American author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays. His best-known work is the 1961 novel Catch-22, a satire on war and bureaucracy, whose title has become a synonym for an absurd or contradictory choice. He was nominated in 1972 for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Reviews

[Walt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a biography. It's Joseph Heller's reminiscences of his early years growing up in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, NY. In the last third of this work Heller reveals the origins and inspirations behind his several well-known novels.

A very good read, especially if you're familiar with Coney Island.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joseph Heller is the author of one of my favorite books of all time, Catch-22. As I've only read the one satire novel by Heller, I was curious to know what a non-fiction piece of work by him would entail. Heller came from very humble beginnings. He paints a good portrait of his family and what it was like growing up in the unique dynamic of having only half-siblings who were "technically orphans." He paints an idyllic picture of Coney Island, legendary for it's theme park attractions, and gives it a more personal perspective of what it was like to grow up there as a resident in a Jewish family.

I think Heller might be on the autism spectrum. There are a lot of traits that he mentions while describing himself that can be typical of those with Aspergers syndrome or on the spectrum. Such as his early knack for writing and unconventional approaches, not caring to partake in social organizations or functions, not caring to vote or for other civic duties, never caring to take care of small things in terms of cooking meals or making beds, wearing the same clothes and never minding to change them for weeks. He mentions "The tendency to be unaware of matters that should be obvious to me has stayed with me."

Nevertheless he is a great storyteller. His life isn't necessarily a remarkable one. He did normal things, went to school, avoided trouble as best he could. He married young, joined the armed forces to fight in the war, took on what decent jobs he could to earn money. Somewhere along the lines, largely due to the G.I. bill, he suddenly found a college education, something that had not been an option for him before, within his grasp. He took advantage of it, which led him to a respectable career in academia as well as that of a writer.

For a memoir of a writer, Heller doesn't really write that much about writing or his career as a writer, which seemed to not really prosper until much later in his life. He mentions it just enough for one to perceive his love of the craft, but for most of the book, it's just subsidiary, something he did as a hobby aside from whatever else he had to do. Instead, he talks a lot about his family, and the nature of the personalities of his siblings, his mom, his neighborhood peers. He talks about his adolescent experiences and has many intriguing anecdotes that he was witness to, or were rumored to be true. He talks about the mood and feeling of Coney Island, and its neighborhoods.

Heller, quite honestly, is not really extraordinary, and seems quite reserved. Yet, the memoir is still pleasant to read, which speaks to him being a pretty decent writer, able to capture the mood or the feeling, in what may seem to be the mundane. He has a skill in being able to convey the spirit of a place or person through writing.

[Raphaela · Rating 4 out of 5]

An account of Heller's life, as opposed to his writing life. I like Heller's sense of humor and honesty; there's an immediacy to his writing that suggests he's making it up as he goes along, adding corrections and footnotes as if holding a conversation.

I especially enjoyed the early chapters, because I'm a sucker for Old New York lore, and Heller spent in his childhood in 1920s Coney Island, so get ready for scene after charming scene of strolling on the boardwalk with Nathan's hot dogs for a nickel!

[Henry · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really strange memoir, almost no revelations about his work or life, it seems to be deliberately vague in certain areas although it has his voice obviously so clips along entertainingly enough and is a nostalgic insight into life pre and post war. Don't get me wrong, i still love his work but why wrote a memoir if you don't want to reveal yourself, it felt to me as if this book was written for the wrong reasons.

[Susan Emmet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really liked this memoir, full of humor and Heller's life full of characters.
So much about life during the Depression, WW2, sights and sounds of Coney Island and the surrounding burroughs, details of daily life and jobs and tentative growth.
I so admire Heller's ability to hone in on details, sensory details, and to acknowledge when he's guessing and when he's sure of his facts.
And a reader can see how much of his life infuses plot and character in his novels.
Am sure that some readers will find the style rather meandering, but I liked it. Also brought back so many memories of life in the NY/Long Island area so many years ago. I found the book full of memorable pictures, visions, sights and sounds and smells.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Heller writes about his life in a fun easy to read manner. Part autobiography and part historical account of Coney Island, Now and Then gives a good snapshot of life in Coney Island before World War II and the changes that took place during and after the conclusion of that war.

Though mostly nostalgic, Mr. Heller includes some vignettes that give us glimpses into his life as a writer, as well as some of the background stories that later appeared in his fictional novels. However, the stories Mr. Heller chooses to include for us sometimes drag with too many details. Overall though, his humor carries the day and makes this book very worth the while to read.

[Divya Pal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointed.
Not a biography in the true sense. Neither is it clear how his magnum opus came to be. All one learns is about a few characters in the book. For me Catch 22 is the book of the century and its genesis is what I wanted to know about.
All we learn is about his gluttony and the fate of his childhood friends. No details about his numerous girl friends, his near fatal illness, his issues with his literary agents and publishers.

[Martin Jee · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them."

- Joseph Heller

[Miles Watson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nobody was more surprised than yours truly that I found this book an immense bore. Heller's reputation precedes him: the author of so seminal a work as "Catch-22" could be fairly expected to wow the eyebrows off a newcomer to his work, but evidently I chose the wrong book to start my exploration of this author. It's my fault. Most sensible people would have started with "22" and worked their way through to the end. Instead, that's where I started, or very nearly. That having been said, this book bored me so badly it took me months to finish it, and it's not much more than 250 pages. It's a work of monumental, hubristic dullness, a memoir of a vanished era (his childhood on Coney Island in the 20s and 30s), which somehow manages to be deeply informative but completely without atmosphere, nostalgia, or sentiment. It's a meticulous work, but painfully dry and curiously void of emotion. My guess is that Heller was far too old when he wrote it: not to remember, but to draw any genuine emotions from his memories. He grew up in Coney Island, and by his own admission, he also grew out of it, and it was long after he did this than he penned this book.

I feel a bit uncomfortable writing this, because who am I to attack an icon? But I have to judge the book on its merits, and aside from a fairly strong start, and an interesting chapter or two that takes place during WW2 (when he was flying with the Air Corps in Italy against the Germans) it is dry and boring. He recites with careful, well-constructed prose the prosaic and banal details of his life -- where he worked, where he lived, how much he made, what he enjoyed eating, etc., etc. Somehow the detail seldom evokes really impressive imagery and almost never any emotion. I've read countless autobiographies and memoirs and the good ones always put you there. This one does not. Heller seems a precise man, precisely reporting the small facts of his tour of this planet, but in a curiously removed, passionless, chess-like manner. There are some good anecdotes and a few touching or amusing stories, but somehow it all reminds me of the interior of a clock: all business.

I just can't recommend this to anyone who isn't deeply interested in Heller himself or that part of New York in that part of history.

[Shari Gullo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this, because I was interested to read about Heller's experience with Guillain-Barre syndrome. The book is 259 pages and he didn't mention GB until page 221 - "And in mid-December of that year I was felled by a rare, paralyzing neurological disease called Guillain-Barre sydrome, whose etiology remains mysterious, and I was pretty much out of action for the next nine months. Stress? Maybe." And then he was off to another topic!

On page 256: "Early in 1982, while a patient in a rehabilitation hospital, the Rush Institute in New York, recuperating from the muscular weakness of my Guillian-Barre syndrome, I went again. Then I was the accomplished native guide on an abbreviated autobiographical tour with Mary Kay Fish, a physical therapist from upstate New York who had never been to Coney Island; Valerie Jean-Humphries, a nurse; and Jerry McQueen, my friend with the car who was then a homicide detective with the city's police force, and a very good one. Valerie Humphries was one of the covey of nurses I fell in love with during a confinement lasting almost six months in two hospitals. We were married in 1987, and she still seems to like me."

On the second to last page: "Mine (legs) are still weak from that neuropathy of fifteen years ago (and from those fifteen years of aging, too.)"

I'm astounded that in a memoir, a writer would write next to nothing in his memoir about being confined for almost six months in two hospitals. He wrote a very interesting article about his Guillian-Barre syndrome in a woman's magazine in 1986 (before the internet) that helped me diagnose my father who contracted GB at that time. I was hoping to read more about Heller's experience with it.

[Wheals]

Wonderful memoir. Surprisingly little direct insight into his own war experience, and how it compares to what he wrote in Catch-22, but maybe he wrote about that in a different autobiography? At any rate, if you're interested in the story of a Jewish kid growing up in New York in the 1920s and '30s who later became a bestselling novelist, worth checking out. As well written as you'd expect from the author.

[Peter Coomber · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little bit of the voice of Bob Slocum speaks out of these pages - and Gold too.
An affectionate recount of his (mostly early) life. Enjoyable, if you are affectionate and are interested in Joseph Heller.
Has a tendency to repeat elements, which is a feature of his novels. This is an observation, not a criticism.
I was affected and interested, hence five stars.

[Janavi Held · Rating 5 out of 5]

My uncle's Autobiography.

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok. Was expecting more about catch 22 tho

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compelling and engaging memoir of a certain way of life

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read through it quickly and enjoyed it. Only worth a read if you really like Joseph Heller. Set your expectations properly. Not life changing but worth the read if you love the guy.

[m · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three-and-a-half stars.

I typed up ~ 1600 words of notes from this book, so it must be worth reading.

Here are some of those notes:

1 Mark Twain is said to have remarked that by the time we're tall enough to reach the jar of jam on the high shelf of the cupboard, we find that we've lost our taste for jam.

7-8 {newspaper boy} At best this was very small stuff, and I was lucky if I earned as much as a dollar. I bought the papers for a penny and a half, I think I remember, and sold them for two cents each, hoping for an occasional tip of a penny or two. People who wanted both might give me a nickel.

22 Our expectations, while varying considerably, were disciplined. We did not want what we could not hope to have, and we were not made bitter or envious by knowing of people who had much more. ... We worked at what we could because we never doubted we had to work, and we felt fortunate indeed that we could find work.

23 I went on writing, of course, but I thought of this work—think of it now, at this very moment—not so much as working for money but as a challenging and eternally and increasingly harrowing (and remunerative) application of the mind to leisure, in much the same way I imagine a rock climber or mountain hiker contends with his pastime or an amateur bridge player or golfer tussles with the frustrations and adversities of his particular obsessive recreation. I make a living from mine.

33 Even back in 1929, when I entered kindergarten....

37 We were children from poor families, but didn't know it. I don't think I have ever in my life thought of myself as underprivileged, as unfairly deprived of something I might reasonably wish to own and didn't. Although incomes were low, everyone's father did seem to have a job, and later everyone's older brother and sister; finally, we, too, were out of school and working. It was a blessing of our childhood to be oblivious of our low economic state and of how other might regard us. We had our beach and our boardwalk, our safe streets, the food and clothing we needed, and I don't believe the circumstance of moderate poverty was too upsetting to our parents either. Nearly all were immigrants and living on a roughly equal level. This was the nature of life; they had learned that in Europe. It was not stylish to bemoan. They expected life to be hard, and most were living better than they had been able to in the Old World.

57 And all at once I understood without needing to put anything into words that this was a part of my life that was definitely over. ... And like someone much older, for I have crossed similar thresholds of loss since, I felt with sadness that something dear was behind me for ever, but I also felt that loss with tremendous relief. It is often pleasing to be free of even good things, and childhood is one of them. Youth is another.

68 In the military, I came close innumerable times to dying young, too, but didn't appreciate that {fact} either until I saw blood pouring from a man wounded in my plane. I expect my war experience in this regard corresponds to that of every infantryman, marine, paratrooper, etc., going into modern battle for the first time. I, luckily, was spared that dreadful recognition until I was far along in my tour of duty, on my thirty-seventh mission. But after that, I was in a state close to panic as we took off from the landing strip at the start of every one of those missions remaining.

69 But I wanted that kite. It was a wish grown into a lust.

* 84 One of the girls was petite and pretty. The second was larger and jolly. I waited my turn and drew the buxom one. The gossip proved true. I felt a female bosom, and I learned something — I learned something fast. I learned that once you had a breast in your hand, there wasn’t much you could do with it.

189-90 The pilot killed in his plane was a blond fellow from upstate New York named James Burrhus, and I knew him, too, having flown missions with him. The copilot was a younger kid named Alvin Yellon, recently arrived, and I found our more about him fifty years later when I received a letter from his brother asking whether the mission I had described in my writing could have been the one on which his brother had met his death. It was.

225 I don't give presents anymore, either, and I no longer observer holidays. I hardly ever hurry.

257 My conviction is strong that those who did give way to drug addiction were individuals without any compelling attributes of personality.

[JCB · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nostalgic look back at his childhood beginnings, the author of ‘Catch 22’ produces an almost elegiac picture of his youth and early adulthood in Coney Island. Although not close to a biography, this memoir of a specific time in Heller’s overall path towards adulthood, while seemingly too narrow and defined, still easily manages to get across what Heller wanted - an evocative and charming look at his upbringing, surroundings, and ultimate track to success.

At times reminiscent of Wouk, or Nathaniel Benchley in its New York settings, 'Now and Then’ never gets too treacly, nor overwhelmingly maudlin in its narrative. While not exactly a stretch for Heller to write it I would think, it still is a pleasant (if that’s not too vanilla a word) read.

[wally · Rating 4 out of 5]

i've had this on the kindle for some time now...perhaps it came w/it? i don't recall the how/why it arrived/is on the device...and why i haven't read it until now is a mystery, as well...

...reading this...or will read...as i go along, after i finish his Something Happened

dedicated: for my sister, sylvia

contents
1. the gold ring
2. coney
3. sea gate
4. work
5. on and on
6. and on and on
7. and on and on and on
8. peace
9. psychiatry
10. danny the bull

i think could be that because this is marked as "sample" on the kindle i had an aversion to reading it...as if it is incomplete, or something...a taste, like the things you can get in the supermarket...but maybe it is complete? one can hope.

the gold ring
begins:
the gold ring on the carousels was made of brass. even as kids in coney island we didn't believe it was the real thing. [kind of like i thought about this...on the kindle...a gold ring...began to type "brass" but corrected...] by the time we'd grown old enough to ride the outside horses and lunge out sideways to grasp the metal rings that swung toward us for the final few rotations, the carousel was no longer enchanting and we had no deep desire for the free ride that the last, lucky gold one awarded. by then we had nickels enough to go around again if we wanted to, but we tended to spend them on attractions that were higher and faster, more spectacular--roller coasters--and, for fun, the electric bump-cars.

okee-dokee, then...onward & upward

update, finished, 4 dec 12, tuesday afternoon, 3:00 p.m. e.s.t.
...and no...it was only a "sample"...incomplete, a taste, like you find in the supermarket...or has congress outlawed that? so...i acquired the complete telling.

a memoir...

...what appealed to me is when he wrote about his fiction...or...when he wrote about his life and from that one could see that he had used events from his life in his fiction. nothing wrong with that...but hadn't saul bellow said something like; by refusing to write about anything that is not thoroughly familiar, the american writer confesses the weakness of the imagination blah blah blah.

...or something.

anyway...certainly heller fictionalized events. i always will think it a hoot that oprah and company were so upset w/frey-fry-fray...whoever it was...that wrote the piece, whatever it was labelled...and were upset when they discovered he had fictionalized parts. the shame! they were surprised? writers lie. come on!

and so, that realized...even here, one must take it all w/a grain of salt as they say.

but i enjoyed when he wrote about his fiction: although i had from the start, from the second chapter on, been dutifully following a disciplined outline, i hadn't perceived till then how much material of a gory nature was embodied in its fulfillment. there was certainly an awful lot for a novel that has since been described by many as among the funniest they've read.

the bit about the outline struck my fancy...for i have heard--stephen king if it matters--say/write that any story made from an outline sucks.

and too...i've had said to me, why do i get the feeling that everything you write actually happened...which led me to tell an oral story that resulted in the initiation of a police investigation. heh! i know. i saw the computer traffic.

so...what to read next?

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Catch 22 author's autobiography.

I loved Catch 22 and I wanted to love this, but the non-sequential structure that underpins that seminal book reoccurs here and it just doesn't work. The events he jumps back and forth between are simply too unmemorable. Heller has lead an interesting life so why he downplays his airforce days and chooses to devote so much time to a dull childhood, flavourless descriptions of bus rides and tiresome sessions with psychiatrists is beyond me. Just as we're getting to some great stuff about Coney Island hoodlums the book ends.

I can only relate reading Now and Then to walking past a Michelin-starred restaurant, smelling the fine flavours emanating from its kitchens, but never being allowed inside to taste them. Heller won't let us in either.

[K.O. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een ontroerend boek, vol humor. (Die twee gaan vaak hand in hand) Onderhoudend geschreven, wat niet vanzelfsprekend is, wanneer het over je eigen herinneringen gaat.
Het heeft me doen stilstaan bij sommige aspecten van WOII, waar ik tot nu toe geen weet van had.
En het heeft me opgezadeld met het vaste voornemen om nu eindelijk eens ‘Catch 22’ te gaan lezen. Zij die dit al wel hebben gedaan, maken in dit boek kennis met enkele personen die model hebben gestaan voor personages uit Catch22 en andere romans van Heller.
Een opmerkelijke jeugd op het Coney Island van de jaren ‘30 en een oorlogsverleden als bommenrichter zorgen voor een mooi relaas dat blijft boeien.

[Benedict Reid]

Has some really interesting stuff, particularly if you're a fan of Joseph Heller's other work. But is unfortunately written like many memoirs as a fairly random list of events and details from Heller's childhood. Personally I really only enjoyed the chapters about his father, his war experiences and his time trying to make it as an author. (I love that he lists how much money he earnt from each short story... he wanted to make sure that readers realised how difficult it was to make a living as an author).

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This seemed slow in the beginning, but very interesting as I got more into his adult life. (Reading this immediately following Steve Martin's book, was probably a bad idea.) Enjoyed reading about the relationship between Heller's own story and his characters'. Very interesting, but my memory is too weak to remember books I read 30-some years ago. I think this would have been excellent, if I had re-read his books recently.

[Brent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Memoir (just what is the difference between a memoir and an autobiography?) by Joseph Heller. For Heller completest' only (like me). Would appeal to those of a certain age who grew up in Coney Island in the 30's, 40's, and 50's. A lot of reminiscing about the changes, his friends, his family, his marriage, the war. . . Ultimately, a sad and depressing read by the man who wrote the funniest book ever written.

[Lori Shaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be fair, when I picked this up from my book swap I thought it was a history of Coney Island, and not Heller's autobiography. Since I'd never read Catch 22 nor have any desire too, I had little interest in learning about this man's back story. I wanted to know about the old Coney, the one my grandma and dad grew up in! I'll have to find a different book to serve that purpose.

[Rudi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad and definately worth reading, but by no means as brilliant as Catch 22. Probably also less insane ;)

[treva · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never read Catch-22, but now I'll be inclined to pick it up next time I see it. Not terribly deep or profound, or even very emotional, as memoirs go, but amusing and conversational.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could have done with less "Coney Island" and more "Here." When he gets around to his adult life, the book finally takes off ...

[Jonathan Karmel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed by these memoirs from one of my favorite novelists. They are a little disorganized, and it doesn't seem like Heller put much effort into this.

[Meryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring and repetitive. There is a lot of unwanted and unnecessary emphasis.