Just One Catch (88 page)

“Great. How much will he pay me?”
: Kinky Friedman,
‘Scuse Me While I Whip This Out: Reflections on Country Singers, Presidents, and Other Troublemakers
(New York: William Morrow, 2004), p. 139.

“I … thought [she] was a bit tall for me”
;
“Here comes my good friend”
;
“Ol' Ben Lucas
”: Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
pp. 137–38, 152.

“taken a turn for the nurse”
: Friedman, ‘
Scuse Me While I Whip This Out,
p. 138.

“NG feedings”
: This and other medical notes are in the Joseph Heller Archive.

“I court[ed] her with all my might”
;
“I'm so glad I met you”
;
“If there were just two more of us”
: Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
pp. 151, 230–31; Joseph Heller, rough draft of
No Laughing Matter,
Joseph Heller Archive.

“I can't”
: This and the ensuing quotes concerning Valerie's care of Joe are from ibid., pp. 187, 203, 208.

“Mr. Heller presents mild symptoms of dysarthria”
: speech pathology report, Joseph Heller Archive.

“When my swallowing ability came back”
: This and subsequent quotes regarding his condition and the removal of the tube are from Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
p. 210.

Joe's friend Bob Towbin
: Active in Democratic Party politics, Towbin was close to Ted Kennedy. In a book called
Trader's Tales,
Ron Insana recorded the following anecdote about him: “A few years after Chappaquiddick, Kennedy visited the trading floor at Unterberg, Towbin. First, Towbin spoke to his traders and then asked the senator to say a few words and mingle with the group. After they finished, and Towbin was ushering his good friend to the exit, Bobby Anotolini [who worked for Towbin] asked the group, ‘Hey girls, the senator's leaving. Anyone need a ride?'” See Ron Insana,
Trader's Tales: A Chronicle of Wall Street Myths, Legends, and Outright Lies
(New York: Wiley, 1997), p. 54.

“All that was missing”; “Knowing Valerie's esteem for the artist Manet”
: Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
p. 188.

“[S]he had an extremely delicate technique”
: ibid., p. 210.

“custom-built queen-sized platform bed”; “Then Valerie and I were in the apartment alone”
: ibid., p. 213.

“That's not a good thing to have”
: ibid., p. 248.

“Mr. Heller's
[need for]
the East Hampton home”
: ibid., p. 267.

“Joe felt nervous”
: As a joke, Speed had hung a life-size photograph of himself above Joe's bed in the apartment. It
was
funny, but unnerving. Later, when Joe moved full-time into the house in East Hampton, he hung the picture of Speed in his guesthouse out back.

“It is fortunate”
: Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
pp. 268–69.

“[O]ur inner lives ordain for us”
: Heller,
God Knows,
p. 61.

“with mental cruelty and abandonment”
: “Joe Heller Takes, and Takes the Fifth.”

“I was not sure I had a case”
: This quote and the subsequent quotes concerning the affidavit and the June 10 hearing are from Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
pp. 268–73.

“This is the happiest summer of my life”; “I've been lucky most of my life”
: McCall, “Something Happened,” pp. 28–29.

“Each time he told me to change the direction”
: Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
p. 294.

“Joe was an entirely different social being”
: ibid., pp. 282–83.

“I'll be grateful to Speed”
: McCall, “Something Happened,” p. 28.

“You guys gotta come over for dinner sometime”; “When?”
: Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
pp. 282–83.

“Every now and then”
: McCall, “Something Happened,” p. 28.

“she [was] the kind of person”
: This and subsequent Speed Vogel quotes are from Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
pp. 259, 278–79.

“It's expensive to be sick”
: ibid., pp. 287–88.

“Seven or nine days”
: ibid., p. 330.

“encourag[ing] [positive pieces]”; “You can't blame the people who run the
Times
”
: Charles Kaiser, “Friends at the Top of the Times,” posted at
charleskaiser.com/kosinski.html
. Similarly, Edwin Diamond wrote, “Complaints of cronyism … and backscratching hounded … [Arthur] Gelb.… The
Times
' solicitous treatment of cultural figures as disparate as Jerzy Kosinski, Joseph Heller, and Betty Friedan became a running joke among the [Russian] Tea Room crowd.” See Edwin Diamond,
Behind the Times
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 324.

“Jewish reporters on the staff”
: Arthur Gelb,
City Room
(New York: Berkley 2003), p. 82.

“What are you worried about?”
: This quote and subsequent quotes and details regarding Speed Vogel's writing are from Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
pp. 284–86, 306.

during a stroll on Fire Island
: LuAnn Walther in conversation with the author, January 26, 2010.

“interest in other women”
: Jerome Taub in an e-mail to the author, January 4, 2010.

“Craig developed a crush on Heller”
: Gelb,
City Room,
pp. 622–23.

“How long ago?”
: Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
p. 301.

“I could get up from a toilet”; “[A]s I saw my time of privileged residence”
: ibid., pp. 312–13.

“on the East Hampton party circuit”
;
“carrying bags”
: ibid., p. 314.

he wrote a check for $160
: financial records in the Joseph Heller Archive.

“One of the messages”
: This and subsequent quotes regarding the incident at the East Hampton house are from Vogel, rough draft of
No Laughing Matter,
Joseph Heller Archive.

“seemed vacant”
: Shortly after this incident, Heller—against the wishes of his lawyer and his accountants—took much of his King David advance money and spent it on a late fall–early winter vacation to St. Croix, accompanied by Valerie and Speed. The weather had turned cold in East Hampton. The house seemed haunted, and Heller wanted to prolong the feelings of intimacy, contentment, and celebration he had experienced during the summer. For an account of the St. Croix trip, see Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
pp. 326–28, 330.

“
Catch-22
may have been the beginning of the end”
: This and subsequent Mulcahy quotes are from Susan Mulcahy, “Celebrity Corner,”
St. Petersburg Evening Independent,
March 12, 1983.

“two unpublished novels”
: J. Heller, rough draft of
No Laughing Matter,
Joseph Heller Archive.

“Sultan of Splitsville”; “A woman is like a Stradivarius violin”; “pluck”
: Howard Kurtz, “‘The Sultan of Splitsville': Lawyer Raoul Lionel, Making Headlines of Heartache,”
Washington Post,
November 21, 1988.

“Contentment and/or quietude of spirit”
: This and subsequent quotes related to the divorce proceedings, unless otherwise noted, are from Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
pp. 317–18.

“Mr. Heller is now saying”
: Joseph Heller, rough draft for
No Laughing Matter,
Joseph Heller Archive.

“Trouble with the letter ‘l'
”: Joseph Heller, personal medical journal, Joseph Heller Archive.

“was eager to do whatever she could”
: This and subsequent quotes by or about Dr. Roberta Jaeger are from documents in the Joseph Heller Archive.

“
Mein Kampf
of matrimonial warfare”
: This and subsequent quotes from or about William Binderman's exchanges with Joseph Heller in court, unless otherwise noted, are from Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
pp. 318–22.

The court transcript reads
: transcript in the Joseph Heller Archive.

“value of copyrights [is] so amorphous”
: Liz Smith, “Battle Royal”
Toledo Blade,
April 6, 1984.

“most persuasive person I [have] ever met”
: Heller and Vogel,
No Laughing Matter,
p. 322.

“Joe's public life was not good for him”
: Dolores Karl in conversation with the author, April 23, 2009.

“Joe went Hollywood in his own inane way”
: Audrey Chestney in conversation with the author, January 5, 2010.

“Shirley was very important to Joe”
: Robert A. Towbin in conversation with the author, April 26, 2009.

“Joe was very shaken by his divorce”
: Barbara Gelb in conversation with the author, August 2, 2010.

“Right after she was divorced from Joe”
: Audrey Chestney in conversation with the author, January 5, 2010.

“I was alone for the first time in my life”
: Graham Bridgstock, “Happiness Is My Catch Number 2,”
Evening Standard
(London), February 7, 1995.

“I had been very unsettled”
: McCall, “Something Happened,” p. 28.

“girlfriends”
: Barbara Gelb in conversation with the author, August 2, 2010.

“The chemistry was plain dumb luck”
: McCall, “Something Happened,” p. 29.

“There is a reluctance to proceed”
: Heller,
Now and Then,
p. 226.

17. GO FIGURE

“none of the customary feelings”
: Joseph Heller and Speed Vogel,
No Laughing Matter
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), p. 120.

“dismayed to discover”
: ibid., p. 155.

“If I'd known in my youth”
: Joseph Heller,
God Knows
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), p. 56.

“I had decided to put Joe on the cover”
: Art Cooper, remarks made at “Joseph Heller: A Celebration,” a memorial service held at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on June 13, 2000. Transcribed by the author from a video recording (courtesy of Erica Heller).

“Like cunnilingus”
: Heller,
God Knows,
p. 65.

“Some Promised Land
”: Heller, ibid., p. 40.

“Apparently written on the principle”
: Earl Rovit, review in
Library Journal,
September 15, 1984, p. 1772.

“very tired”;
“
shallow
”: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, “God Knows,”
New York Times,
September 19, 1984.

“repetitious, often annoying”
: Richard Cohen, “Old Testament Time Warp,”
Washington Post Book World,
September 30, p. 1.

“disappointing hodgepodge”
: Paul Gray, “The 3,000-Year-Old Man,”
Time,
September 24, 1984, pp. 74–75.

“slap in the face”
: Curt Suplee, “Catching Up with Joseph Heller,”
Washington Post,
October 8, 1984.

“
God Knows
is junk”
: Leon Wieseltier, “Schlock of Recognition,”
The New Republic,
October 29, 1984, pp. 31–33.

“Look, I've adjusted to this”
: Suplee, “Catching Up with Joseph Heller.”

“The abundantly talented Joseph Heller”
: Mordecai Richler, “He Who Laughs Last,”
New York Times Book Review,
September 23, 1984, p. 1.

“becomes the head of a family”
: David Seed,
The Fiction of Joseph Heller: Against the Grain
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989), p. 160.

“O my son Absalom!”
Heller,
God Knows,
p. 327.

“I was always faithful”
: ibid., p. 104.

Apparently, at one point, Heller had planned to write an erotic romp along the lines of Philip Roth's
Portnoy's Complaint
or John Updike's
Couples,
but wound up folding the erotic material into
God Knows.

“perfumed [his] bed with aloes”
: ibid., p. 107.

“David, it's enough already”
: ibid., p. 327.

“Shakespeare's method”
: David M. Craig,
Tilting at Mortality: Narrative Strategies in Joseph Heller's Fiction
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997), p. 147.

“[I]t is the capacity for change”
: Judith Ruderman,
Joseph Heller
(New York: Continuum, 1991), p. 107.

“That's bullshit, Samuel”
: ibid., p. 56.

“To the Rabbis”
: John Friedman and Judith Ruderman, “Joseph Heller and the ‘Real' King David,”
Judaism
36, no. 3 (1987): 298.

“I want my God back”
: Heller,
God Knows,
p. 353.