Changes

|title=Yossarian Slept Here

|author=Erica Heller

|borrow=Yes

|isbn=978-0099570080

|pages=288

|publisher=Vintage

|date=October 2011

|summary=No one who has any interest in modern life, culture or literature can fail to recognise the name Joseph Heller, author of [[Catch 22 by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]. This autobiographical account by his daughter reveals much about the man, but even more about her own colourful but ultimately painful family life in New York. It becomes a rich account of how Erica comes to terms with the aftermath of her parents' dreams.

}}

'To live forever or die in the attempt' was the essential glory in life and living that is at the heart of John Yossarian in [[Catch 22 by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]. This autobiography of the daughter of his creator, Joseph Heller, reveals how the same excitement and joie de vivre suffused throughout the Heller family. The harebrained unpredictability, the madcap exploits and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and verve.

When I picked this up I expected the book to reveal the world of Catch 22 and the insights of a character who would inevitably stand head and shoulders above everyone else in the book, Joseph Heller. But what I was left with was an account in which the fame, celebrity and great wit of Heller himself seemed to drop away as Erica Heller told her very own story, of her own magic childhood and of the daughter trapped between divided parents. Her struggle to reconcile her love for both of them is the real centre of this autobiography. And it is a much better book that might have been expected because of that.

An autobiography that is a biography, an insider account of a famous family, a child reflecting on and trying to come to terms with their famous father - it sounds rather like a description of Svetlana Stalin's 'Twenty Letters to a Friend'. The insider view of the American celebrity world is better captured by [[You Are Not Alone: Michael Through A Brother's Eyes by Jermaine Jackson]], but neither really have such an engaging style and depth as 'Yossarian slept here'.

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[[Category:Biography]]