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The brief, haunting section on his air force service confirms that Heller drew on his own experiences for Catch-22. But it's his boyhood home, Brooklyn's Coney Island in the 1920s and '30s, that prompts Now and Then's best pages. You can practically taste the cheap ice cream and hot knishes, hear the shrieks of kids on the amusement park's hurtling rides, see the facades of long-demolished apartment buildings, and smell the sand-and-salt odor wafting from the beach. The dignity and emotional reticence of Heller's widowed mother, the security he felt in an impoverished but safe immigrant neighborhood, come to life just as vividly.
Scattered anecdotes about famous friends (including Irwin Shaw and James Jones) are also evocative, and occasional comments about his novels' themes reveal Heller to be a better self-critic than most writers. But it's his affectionate tribute to a vanished New York that most clearly displays this popular author's narrative skills and engaging personality. --Wendy Smith
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Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here 0.8. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS-9780375700552
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. From the author of two of our most legendary novels, Catch-22 and SomethingHappened, comes a slyly funny, vastly revelatory memoir that is at once a lovingevocation of a lost America and an exploration of the frontier where life turnsinto literature.Now and Then follows Joseph Heller from his fatherless childhood on theboardwalks of Depression-era Coney Island, where he grew up amid the rumble ofthe Cyclone and the tantalizing aroma of Mrs. Shatzkin's knishes. It offers adizzying bombardier's-eye view of the sky over wartime Italy, where Hellerencountered the characters and incidents he would later translate into Catch-22.It depicts a writer coming to terms with both rejection and celebrity. Here, inshort, is a life filled with incident and insight, recollected with subversivehumor, exquisite timing, and a fine appreciation for the absurd. From the author of legendary novel "Catch-22" 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. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780375700552
Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition 0.5. Seller Inventory # bk0375700552xvz189zvxnew
Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published 0.5. Seller Inventory # 353-0375700552-new
Book Description Softcover. Condition: New. Special order direct from the distributor. Seller Inventory # ING9780375700552