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.