Closing Time
In a novel as darkly comic and audaciously ambitious as was Catch-22, Joseph Heller has dared to write the sequel to his American classic, using many of Catch-22's characters, now older if not wiser, to deftly satirize the realities and the myths of America in the half century since they fought World War II. In 1961, Joseph Heller's remarkable first novel made its way immediately into the American psyche and came to symbolize the absurdity of war and of life. Catch-22 was recognized overnight as a classic and has sold nearly ten million copies in the United States alone. It remains perhaps the funniest - and the most serious - novel ever written about war, "an apocalyptic masterpiece," in the words of one reviewer. Now, thirty-three years later, Joseph Heller has written the sequel. You don't have to have read Catch-22 (But then, who on earth hasn't?) to enjoy Closing Time, which is a fully independent companion work, a comic masterpiece in its own right, in which Heller spears the inflated balloons of our national consciousness - the absurdity of our politics, the decline of society and our great cities, the greed and hypocrisy of our business and culture - with the same feroci
Themes & atmosphere
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What you might want to know about Closing Time
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Decades after the war, Yossarian, Milo Minderbinder, and the chaplain reappear in 1990s New York alongside Heller's old Brooklyn friends. A late, autumnal sequel to Catch-22 about aging, money, and the end.
Yes. Closing Time, published in 1994, is Joseph Heller's sequel to his 1961 classic Catch-22. It revisits Yossarian and other characters in 1990s New York. Critical reception was mixed, with many readers preferring the original.
Yes. Closing Time assumes detailed knowledge of Catch-22 and revisits its characters decades later. The sequel is rarely recommended on its own.
Closing Time was written by Joseph Heller, published in 1994 by QPD.
Closing Time is 464 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Closing Time takes most readers 7 to 10 hours to finish.
Closing Time is a standalone novel by Joseph Heller, not part of a series.
Closing Time is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.