Joseph Heller

(1923 - 1999)

Joseph Heller flew sixty missions over France and Italy while serving in the Air Force during World War II, an experience that informed his novel Catch-22. Originally titled Catch-18, the book was renamed after it was discovered that Leon Uris’ novel, also to be published in 1961, was called Mila 18. After publishing four more novels in the 1970s and 1980s, among them Something Happened, Heller said in 1993, “When I read something saying I’ve not done anything as good as Catch-22, I’m tempted to reply, ‘Who has?’ ”