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Joseph Heller

No Laughing Matter Hardcover – February 21, 1986

by Joseph Heller (Author), Speed Vogel (Author)

57 ratings

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Imbued with wit and biting humor, this memoir by the author of "Catch-22" recounts Heller's battle against Guillain-Barre syndrome, a sometimes fatal condition that can leave its victims paralyzed, and the camaraderie of friends who rallied to his support

Print length

335 pages
Language

English
Publisher

G. P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date

February 21, 1986
Dimensions

20 x 20 x 20 inches
ISBN-10

0399130861
ISBN-13

978-0399130861
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In alternating chapters, Heller and Vogel recount Heller's bout with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a paralyzing affliction that struck him in 1981, from which he has now recovered. The two voices blend magnificentlythe authors have been friends for 25 yearsand together they engagingly draw readers into Heller's hospital room and into both their lives. The physical and emotional ramifications of Heller's condition, for himself and his circle of friends (Mario Puzo, Dustin Hoffman, Mel Brooks), are honestly detailed; and Heller, in his first nonfiction work, movingly and unsentimentally describes the experiences of paralysis, illness and rehabilitation. Stories of disease are unlikely to be as lively and fun as thisthere is even a love interest as Heller falls in love with his nurseand for anyone interested in Heller and his work, the book is a treasure trove of biographical information. Repetition slows the bookthe derivation of the name Kinky Friedman (he makes a cameo appearance in Good as Gold is offered several times; Joseph Stein is more than once identified as the author of Fiddler on the Roofand the authors seem to name-drop when they describe the social scene at Mt. Sinai, but as one friend of Heller's remarked to Vogel after a visit to the hospital: "It was not like visiting any other patient. It was sheer entertainment." First serial to the New York Times Magazine.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ G. P. Putnam's Sons; 1st edition (February 21, 1986)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 335 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0399130861
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0399130861
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 20 x 20 x 20 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,715,785 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,434 in Nervous System Diseases (Books)
- #4,146 in Medical Professional Biographies
- #10,021 in Author Biographies

Customer Reviews:
57 ratings

About the author

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Joseph Heller

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Joseph Heller was born in 1923 in Brooklyn, New York. He served as a bombardier in the Second World War and then attended New York University and Columbia University and then Oxford, the last on a Fullbright scholarship. He then taught for two years at Pennsylvania State University, before returning to New York, where he began a successful career in the advertising departments of Time, Look and McCall's magazines. It was during this time that he had the idea for Catch-22. Working on the novel in spare moments and evenings at home, it took him eight years to complete and was first published in 1961. His second novel, Something Happened was published in 1974, Good As Gold in 1979 and Closing Time in 1994. He is also the author of the play We Bombed in New Haven.

Customer reviews

5 star		59%
4 star		25%
3 star		12%
2 star		4%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

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Top reviews from the United States

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KATE

months in the hospital and many more months of rehab with humor and good grace. In 1981 there was no treatment for ...

Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2017

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This book will tell you everytthing you might want to know about Guillian-Barre and then some. Heller's experience with the syndrome was horrendous. He and Speed Vogel wrote about the diagnosis, months in the hospital and many more months of rehab with humor and good grace. In 1981 there was no treatment for GBS and Heller suffered terribly. After being diagnosed and hospitalized with Guillian-Barre, I could not read. I could not focus and had blurry vision. This book is the first book I read after 3 months of rehab. I was lucky, as GBS was diagnosed a week after the first symptoms. Today there is treatment and it worked for me.

4 people found this helpful

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Waukesha citizen

Guillain Barre recovery story

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2019

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I am currently recovering from Guillain Barre myself and this book was recommended to me. It’s an interesting story of the patient, Joseph Heller and his friend. You see both sides of the situation. It was helpful to me to see that even though he had a worse case of GB than I do, that he did eventually recover. Some comments rang so true, like once you get past the acute phase, even if things are not perfect, they are very good. Some GB stories do not end well at all. And like him, I do not want to hear any stories about the second time someone got GB. Please spare me...

3 people found this helpful

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Eileen Charles Hyatt

Coping With Challenge, Having a Gaggle of Good Friends

Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2016

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I bought this book for a friend who has been stricken with Guillain-Barre and read it myself first. I do not know how much knowledge and treatment about GB has changed since this book was written in 1986 and has been updated in 2004, but that is not the edition I read. The chapters alternate being written by Joseph Heller and his friend Speed Vogel who went through it all with Heller, along with the camaraderie of a host of friends that the two of them have fostered through their lives. Despite the horror of Guillain-Barre, well into his recovery Heller recalls the first year of it as being one of the most memorable of his life.

One person found this helpful

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Garden Geek

Book is mostly about who Heller knows, not Guillain Barre

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2021

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I was diagnosed with Guillain Barre in April and was looking for a story about someone else's experience with the syndrome. Sadly, Heller spent way more time talking abut the famous people that visited him than his symptoms and how he dealt with them. I only read half the book then threw it away.

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PhredTop Contributor: Manga

Uneven but ultimately you get inside the lives of good people

Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2013

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Most of the people who have reviewed No Laughing Matter, have had direct family experience with Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS). For most of them this book has provided much-needed comfort and support while surviving a desperately insidious and life-threatening condition. The onset of GBS can be a set of relatively mild conditions indistinct and easy to ignore. At varying speeds a person so stricken can find it impossible to breathe or swallow or move or even fully recognize that they cannot breathe or swallow or move. Absent supportive therapy a person which GBS is likely to die. Of those who do get to a hospital and are correctly diagnosed survival can be a close mathematical probability.

To this day there is no definitive test for GBS nor is there any medically applied cure. Surviving the syndrome can require months of inpatient emergency hospital care followed by months or years of physical therapy and indeed the one question doctors and fellow sufferers will never be able to answer is "how much will come back".

Part of the subtlety of GBS is that you may not look ill, you may not feel ill. You will know that you have lost control of your body but you will not always feel the pain or any neural feedback that will tell your brain you have lost control of your body.

My point in detailing the above is to make it clear that GBS can leave you feeling very isolated and very confused. Friends and family may not appreciate your situation. Those who become your caregivers will be critical to you in ways neither you nor they can predict.

I did not come to No Laughing Matter as a person with any contact with GBS. My last contact with Joseph Heller was his book Picture This. Picture This : A Novel While brilliantly written - I am a Joseph Heller fan - it is cynical dark and unrelentingly negative. I wanted to experience a different Joseph Heller and was aware of this book through one of his biographies. Just One Catch: The Passionate Life of Joseph Heller you might say I was looking for some Joseph Heller therapy.

The structure of the book No Laughing Matter is a series of alternating chapters written by Joseph Heller and Speed Vogel. It begins as Heller first experiences the onset of GBS alternates with Vogel describing his role as close friend and volunteer caregiver; continuing through his hospitalization, therapy and recovery. There are a few asides about Heller's then pending divorce and some mention of his ongoing writing..

Joseph Heller had grown-up with a number of people who would be, well connected in literary New York society. His own success as a writer and association with the entertainment industry would broaden and deepen his contacts therefore this book is laden with names of legitimate friends of his such as Mel Brooks, Mario Puzo and slightly indirectly Paul Simon. This may sound like name dropping but these were people with whom Joseph Heller routinely socialized. It is also clear that Heller has a rather peculiar personality in that he could be highly manipulative but also very inventive in showing his gratitude and appreciation.

Having explained so much of the background of the disease and the people involved I'm going to accelerate: why only three stars for this book. The early part of the book feels a forced. One gets a sense that you are being shown not the real people involved but how they think they can best present themselves. Co-author Speed Vogel appears to have been a man of many achievements enormous, loyalty but something of a confusing history. He is a hero of this book yet one senses he was as much taking advantage of the situation as surrendering many months of his life to be the kind of friend few of us will ever experience. I can wish to have a friend such as Speed, but I still don't I understand him.

Something changes as you get to the very end of the book. Whether it is the pressure of bringing it to a close or an inability to maintain control or the projected images; it is in the last chapters of the book that I finally felt myself a member of this unintentional family and appreciating the real people behind these words.

Thanks to this book I can offer my genuine sympathy and best wishes to those who must deal with the reality of GBS either as the stricken person or their immediate family. In terms of my own purposes for selecting this book I'm left with more questions. How does Joseph Heller the man translates into Joseph Heller the writer. The man was complex but ultimately a good human. The writer whose playful use of language I enjoyed, tended to be more cynical and negative. The suggestion that the recovering Heller was a happier person who took more pleasure in his life and offered more happiness to those around him is perhaps the real inspiration for both us and those who come into contact with Guillain-Barre syndrome.

6 people found this helpful

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Diane Hamilton

Boring

Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2020

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Seemed interesting in the beginning but got really boring. Rich, famous people don't really suffer - moral of the story. And heller was a sexist pig.

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Amazon Customer

Great account of his illness

Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2016

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Fascinating account of Heller's time with Guillain-Barre Syndrome. Alternate chapters by his very good friend, Speed Vogel. As a survivor of the GBS, I found it informative. It was also entertaining. A good combination of seriousness and humor.

3 people found this helpful

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Geo

It help me a lot during my brothers illness

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2011

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This book help me alot when my elder brother got ill with Guillain Barre Syndrom. unfortunately he past away after 9 months of fighting the deseas.

Abrazo, geo

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Flippa

Well worth a read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 7, 2017

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The book arrived very promptly and although I have only had the chance to read the first few chapters so far, it seems like an honest and very funny book. I was recommended it by a friend who has the same syndrome and it certainly opens your eyes as to what it actually feels like to have it.

One person found this helpful

Amazon Customer

A good read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 22, 2019

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Have read this before.....so good I want to read it again !!

M. Davies

Surprisingly entertaining

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 18, 2010

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Despite the subject, which indeed is no laughing matter, the book is light hearted, amusing and very interesting. I hope and pray I never get GBS, but if I do I hope one of my friends turns out to be as great a support to me as the co author, Speed Vogel. Nearly 30 years have gone by since Joseph Heller was struck down with this awful and debilitating condition. As far as I know, modern interventions and treatments don't make a significant difference to the very slow recovery. Joseph Heller's experience brings home the enormous impact GBS has on the unfortunate few who contract it and the book, while by no means glossing over any aspect of the condition, would surely bring comfort to sufferers. How fortunate for us that such a talented writer was able to give a first hand account of this thankfully rare illness.

5 people found this helpful

Larry Best

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on April 5, 2018

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all good!

Anna Smith

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 13, 2014

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