CATCH AS CATCH CAN: The Collected Stories and Other Writings
Joseph Heller, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Park Bucker
Simon & Schuster
Fiction
ISBN: 0743257936

An editors' note appears in the early pages of CATCH AS CATCH CAN, a collection of short stories and other short pieces by Joseph Heller, the late novelist most famous for his 1961 novel CATCH-22. The note informs readers that the texts are unaltered because writers who have passed on cannot approve changes. Editors Matthew J. Bruccoli and Park Bucker evidently also believe that dead writers need not be subject to much critical inquiry other than that written by the author himself --- and this apparent belief weakens what is otherwise a useful and, for the most part, entertaining collection.

Bruccoli's forward to CATCH AS CATCH CAN would be more properly credited to Heller, drawing as it does on Heller's 1998 memoir NOW AND THEN. Bruccoli's few comments, placed in and around extended quotations from Heller's book, offer little of interpretive value and explain almost nothing about the selection of the previously unpublished stories that appear in the book. Heller wrote twenty short stories that were never published, we are told. CATCH AS CATCH CAN includes five of those stories. There is no explanation as to why the other fifteen were not included.

Bruccoli is correct in his brief assessment of the stories that do appear, both published and previously unpublished. Those written prior to CATCH-22 (which is the vast majority) are fairly successful stories written in the prevailing literary styles of the times and lacking Heller's trademark zaniness and biting satirical wit.

However, it is the material relating to CATCH-22 that is most interesting and entertaining in this collection. CATCH AS CATCH CAN includes two parts of the original manuscript that did not survive the final edit, but were reprinted as short stories in Playboy in 1969 and 1987, respectively. In 1990, Heller published two pieces of his upcoming CLOSING TIME, a CATCH-22 sequel, in Smart magazine and The Nation (as well as The Guardian), respectively; both appear in the collection. CATCH AS CATCH CAN also includes a one-act play, "Clevinger's Trial," a dramatization of a scene from the novel that was dropped from a script of the entire book, as well as five non-fiction pieces featuring Heller's various comments about the novel.

The CATCH-22 material alone would make this book a must-have for Heller fans. The additional stories are an added, if unexamined, bonus.

   --- Reviewed by Rob Cline

• Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.