Yossarian Slept Here: When Joseph Heller Was Dad, the Apthorp Was Home, and Life Was a <i>Catch-22</i>

Erica Heller

Sep 2011 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Karen White

About this audiobook

Like his most famous work, Joseph Heller was a study in contradictions: eccentric, brilliant, and voracious, but also mercurial, competitive, and stubborn, with a love of mischief that sometimes cut too close to the bone. Yossarian Slept Here is a daughter's mordantly funny, poignant, and incisive memoir about growing up Heller-from her colorful family members and her parents' passionate and tumultuous 38-year marriage, to her father's celebrity friends and the family's eccentric neighbors in New York City's historic Apthorp apartment building. Mel Brooks, Zero Mostel, and Mario Puzo were close confidantes of Joe; George Balanchine, Sidney Poitier, and Lena Horne shared the elevator. This authentic and vibrant portrait of life in the Heller household unfolds alongside the saga of the family's move into four distinctive apartments within the Apthorp, each representing a different phase of their lives together-and apart. It is a story about achieving a dream, about fame and its aftermath, about lasting love, squandered opportunities and how to have the best meal in Chinatown.

About the author

Erica Heller is the daughter of Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22. An advertising copywriter, novelist, and creative consultant, her work has appeared in the New York Observer and on the Huffington Post. She lives in New York City at the ever-evolving Apthorp apartment building.

Karen White has been narrating audiobooks since 1999, with more than two hundred to her credit. Honored to be included in AudioFile's Best Voices and Speaking of Audiobooks's Best Romance Audio 2012 and 2013, she is also an Audie Award finalist and has earned multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards.