Synopses & Reviews
Catch-22 is like no other novel we have ever read. It has its own style, its own rationale, its own extraordinary character. It moves back and forth from hilarity to horror. It is outrageously funny and strangely affecting. It is totally original.
It is set in the closing months of World War II, in an American bomber squadron on a small island off Italy. Its hero is a bombardier named Yossarian, who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he hasn't even met keep trying to kill him. (He has decided to live forever even if he has to die in the attempt.)
Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to someone dangerously sane. It is a novel that lives and moves and grows with astonishing power and vitality. It is, we believe, one of the strongest creations of the mid-century.
Performed by Jay O. Sanders
Synopsis
Presents the contemporary classic depicting the struggles of a United States airman attempting to survive the lunacy and depravity of a World War II airbase.
About the Author
Joseph Heller was born in Brooklyn in 1923. In 1961, he published
Catch-22, which became a bestseller and, in 1970, a film. He went on to write such novels as
Something Happened,
God Knows,
Picture This,
Closing Time (the sequel to Catch-22), and
Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man. Heller died in December 1999.
Jay O. Sanders has been seen in over 80 films, among them The Day After Tomorrow, The Big Green, Tucker, and JFK; his stage work includes extensive work on and Off-Broadway. On TV he has appeared on, among many others, Law & Order, Northern Exposure, and Roseanne.