Yossarian Slept Here
When Joseph Heller Was Dad, the Apthorp Was Home, and Life Was a Catch-22
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In addition to his novels, short stories, plays, and, screenplays, Joseph Heller (1923 1999) wrote two memoirs. Now it's his daughter's turn, looking back at her youth when her father found fame. She begins in 1945 when her parents met in the Catskills ("the Jewish Alps"), married, and moved into a grand Upper West Side apartment building, the Apthorp, Erica's evocative memory dwells on her hot butterscotch sundaes among the ladies who lunched in the splendiferous Schrafft's. She recalls 1953, when her father began writing Catch-22, and how publication nine years later changed their lives. Among many homey revelations are Heller's terrible taste in clothes (his wife dressed him), and his comments on Erica's novel Splinters ("Not as bad as I expected"). With wit punctuating lambent nostalgia, she brings her father to life in an animated, absorbing fashion, documenting his quirky habits, celebrity, and "invisible, unfathomable inner cycle," but also her parents' divorce and Heller's suffering with Guillain-Barr syndrome. The total effect is akin to leafing through a bulging family scrapbook where one finds a few blurry images among many snapshots in sharp focus. Erica Heller has inherited her father's finely tuned flair with words. 31 b&w photos.
Customer Reviews
Really Laugh Until You Really Cry
This is a very interesting, educational and poignant memoir. For me, it is also a diet book: Erica Heller's writing wouldn't let me stop laughing so that I could eat. When I started reading the book I was enjoying a bowl of soup. Between snorting, drooling from open-mouth shock and sputtering with laughter, I put the unfinished soup away, so I could continue reading, and that was just Part 1.
Throughout the book, each time I thought I could chance a snack, I read a whammy of a memory, causing a chortle, guffaw or bark of laughter. So, don't eat, but do read Erica Heller's book. Be mindful of reading it on public transportation. Had an explosion of laughter there too. After finishing the book there are parts that pop up in my mind, and I start laughing again, for no apparent reason.
I may have lost a couple of pounds reading this book. It's that good. Read it yourself to discover which parts set you off. The laughter is throughout, yet towards the end it feels emotionally raw too. Thank you Erica Heller for helping me understand what it is to turn from being our parents' child into a grown-up.