Something Happened

"[This book] is as clear and hard-edged as a cut diamond. Mr. Heller's concentration and patience are so evident on every page that one can only say that [the book] is at all points precisely what he hoped it would be....[It] is so astonishingly pessimistic, in fact, that it can be called a daring experiment....Joseph Heller is the first major American writer to deal with unrelieved misery at novel length. Even more rashly, he leaves his major character, Slocum, essentially unchanged at the end....The uneasiness which many people will feel about liking 'Something Happened' has roots which are deep. It is no casual thing to swallow a book by Joseph Heller, for he is, whether he intends to be or not, a maker of myths....This is the most memorable, and therefore the most permanent variation on a familiar theme, in that it says baldly what the other variations only implied:...That many lives judged by the standards of the people who live them, are simply not worth living."Heller, Joseph is the author of 'Something Happened', published 1997 under ISBN 9780684841212 and ISBN 0684841215.