Something Happened (1974) was Heller’s second novel, published 13 years after the brilliant success of Catch-22. It tells the story of Bob Slocum, a fearful company man with a loveless marriage, a brain-damaged child to look after at home, and a predilection for office affairs with secretaries who call him ‘Mr Slocum’ in bed.Asked about the genesis of the title, Heller said: ‘Something Happened turned up in the fall of ’63 when I was walking with George Mandel past Korvettes or Brentano’s [in Manhattan] and a kid came running past and yelled over his shoulder to another, “Hey, come on, something’s happened” — some sort of traffic accident I guess it must have been.’ Heller didn't run after the kid to find out, but the idea of 'something' happening - the fictionalized version of this ‘traffic accident’ - provided the dramatic ‘something’ that happens at the end of the book (it involves traffic, but it would be unfair to reveal more; suffice to say it is an ending of nightmarish proportions). It dismayed critics who had expected more of the clowning of Catch-22, and established a new, bleaker voice for Heller.
Consulted:
Sorkin, Adam J., ed: Conversations with Joseph Heller (1993)
I adore this book, and the title always struck me as being a great one. 'Something Happened' as the very definition of 'event'.
ReplyDeleteSure Pia but I'm not so convinced about the book myself. I'll probably have to read it again. I think it was an attempt to find a new tone after Catch-22 that didnt convince me - and after that things really started going downhill. Good as Gold, for example, where the over-the-top satire and the realistic descriptions of a family never merged together. Philip Roth, who covered many of the same areas, Jewish family, sexual appetite, ageing and death, political shenanigans, is to me a far greater writer.
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