Something Happened.

HELLER, Joseph.

$1,250.00

Item Number: 142998

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.

First edition of this classic work by the author of Catch-22. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To Ted Solotaroff, With good wishes (It may read better in print than it did in manuscript.) Joseph Heller.” The recipient, Ted Solotaroff was an editor and literary critic. Solotaroff attended the University of Michigan, graduating in 1952, and did graduate work at the University of Chicago, where he became friends with Philip Roth and dedicated himself to literature. He was an editor at Commentary from 1960 to 1966, then in 1967 founded The New American Review, which was an influential literary journal in paperback, not magazine, format for the decade of its existence. After it folded, he became an editor at Harper & Row, where he edited works by Russell Banks, Sue Miller, Robert Bly, Bobbie Ann Mason, and others.  Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Paul Bacon. An exceptional association.

Bob Slocum was living the American dream. He had a beautiful wife, three lovely children, a nice house...and all the mistresses he desired. He had it all -- all, that is, but happiness. Slocum was discontent. Inevitably, inexorably, his discontent deteriorated into desolation until...something happened. Something Happened is Joseph Heller's wonderfully inventive and controversial second novel satirizing business life and American culture. The story is told as if the reader was overhearing the patter of Bob Slocum's brain -- recording what is going on at the office, as well as his fantasies and memories that complete the story of his life. The result is a novel as original and memorable as his Catch-22.