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No Laughing Matter Hardcover – February 21, 1986
Joseph Heller (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
- Print length335 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherG. P. Putnam's Sons
- Publication dateFebruary 21, 1986
- Dimensions20 x 20 x 20 inches
- ISBN-100399130861
- ISBN-13978-0399130861
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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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: #1,101,099 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,010 in Nervous System Diseases (Books)
- #2,832 in Medical Professional Biographies
- #6,630 in Author Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

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.
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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.
Abrazo, geo
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