With his first book, the seminal anti-war novel Catch-22, Joseph Heller became one of American literature's most important 20th-century writers. The posthumous collection, Catch As Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings, shows Heller's early development as a writer, but in essence provides the "outtakes," "B-sides," and sketches related to Catch-22, and several nonfiction pieces regarding it, mixed with juvenilia. A more appropriate title might have been The Making of Catch-22.

Heller's early forays into fiction are somewhat memorable, such as "The Girl from Greenwich," a story about vanity, and "A Man Named Flute," wherein a father deals with the discovery of his son's drug use. Also, "World Full of Great Cities" is a disturbing look at what a couple might do to save their marriage. This collection, however, contains a great many works that revolve around Catch-22, or contain characters that appear in that work, including two chapters cut from the novel and published as independent stories: "Love, Dad" and "Yossarian Survives." Not surprisingly, these are the strongest works in the book. "Love, Dad" provides the first introduction to Edward J. Nately III, who "was often lonely and nagged by vague, incipient longings. He contemplated his sophomore year at Harvard without enthusiasm, without joy. Fortunately, the War broke out in time to save him." Joseph Heller will be known forever for his great novel, Catch-22, and Catch As Catch Can serves to back up this notion. --Michael Ferch

From Publishers Weekly
This posthumous collection of Heller's writings combines his published stories with five previously unpublished ones, along with several essays about the writing of-and fallout from-Catch-22 and a play based on that novel. The collection, which covers 50 years of Heller's work, is striking for its range of tone. Readers familiar only with the acid humor of Catch-22 will be surprised by the melancholy of his early naturalistic stories about poverty, forgotten war heroes and recovering drug addicts. WWII vet Nathan Scholl returns from a heroin treatment program in Kentucky to his native Washington, D.C., where he drifts through his old haunts dejected and uncured, in "To Laugh in the Morning." In "Lot's Wife," Sydney Cooper watches as his wife, Louise, nonchalantly smokes a cigarette in the car, unaffected by the presence, outside the vehicle, of the injured man she's just run down. The couple reappear in "The Death of the Dying Swan," she as a party hostess with a plastic smile, he as the dutiful but resentful husband who escapes the party by volunteering to buy a jar of mustard. The collection shows the gradual evolution of an author who began his career writing polished but predictable stories and ended up inventing a voice and idiom that came to define the postwar era. The volume will be much appreciated by Heller's fans and students. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Numerous early stories, including some never before in print, plus five nonfiction pieces. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Heller's indelible 1961 antiwar novel, Catch-22, became a keystone work in American literature, added a new term to the dictionary, and transformed the author into a cultural icon. Heller's resounding success seemed sudden, but he had been hard at work on his fiction long before his first novel galvanized the nation, as evident in the 18 short stories showcased in this vibrant posthumous gathering of long scattered and, in some cases, never-before-published works. Edited by literary scholar extraordinaire Bruccoli and coeditor Bucker, the collection begins with resonant tales from the late 1940s and 1950s, in which Heller tackles such tricky subjects as a soldier's uneasy return from war, the emotional toll of the Depression, and, in the noirish "World Full of Great Cities," acute sexual tension. Heller's mordant wit, piercing psychological insight, and keen geopolitical awareness are on glinting display in his later stories, several of which pick up the life thread of Yossarian, the bombardier from Catch-22, anticipating the 1994 sequel, Closing Time. In the volume's frank, self-mocking, and deadpan essays, Heller revisits the genesis and reception of Catch-22 and recounts the making of the film version. Also included is Heller's caustically farcical one-act play based on an episode from Catch-22, as well as a reflective reminiscence of his Coney Island boyhood. All told, this is a welcome and illuminating addition to the oeuvre of a great American writer. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
The San Diego Union-Tribune Read this collection chronologically to appreciate Heller's growing command of tone and plot. Or dip in and out to sample his variety, which encompassed theater..., stories of romance, violence and heroin, travel writing and the memoir. He was so versatile that he could have concentrated on any one of these genres.

Book Description
Years before the publication of Catch-22 ("A monumental artifact of contemporary literature" -- The New York Times; "An apocalyptic masterpiece" -- The Chicago Sun-Times; "One of the most bitterly funny works in the language" -- The New Republic), Joseph Heller began sharpening his skills as a writer, searching for the voice that would best express his own peculiarly wry view of the world. In Catch As Catch Can, editors Matthew J. Bruccoli and Park Bucker have for the first time collected the short stories Heller published prior to that first novel, along with all the other short pieces of fiction and nonfiction that were published during his lifetime. Also included are five previously unpublished short stories, most reflecting the influence on Heller of urban naturalist writers such as Irwin Shaw and Nelson Algren. The result is an important and significant addition to our understanding and appreciation of Joseph Heller, showing his evolution as a writer and artist. For those unfamiliar with his work, it will serve as an excellent introduction; for everyone else, Catch As Catch Can is a chance to explore a new aspect of Heller's remarkable career.

Download Description
"Years before the publication of Catch-22 (""A monumental artifact of contemporary literature"" -- The New York Times; ""An apocalyptic masterpiece"" -- The Chicago Sun-Times; ""One of the most bitterly funny works in the language"" -- The New Republic), Joseph Heller began sharpening his skills as a writer, searching for the voice that would best express his own peculiarly wry view of the world. In Catch As Catch Can, editors Matthew J. Bruccoli and Park Bucker have for the first time collected the short stories Heller published prior to that first novel, along with all the other short pieces of fiction and nonfiction that were published during his lifetime. Also included are five previously unpublished short stories, most reflecting the influence on Heller of urban naturalist writers such as Irwin Shaw and Nelson Algren. The result is an important and significant addition to our understanding and appreciation of Joseph Heller, showing his evolution as a writer and artist. For those unfamiliar with his work, it will serve as an excellent introduction; for everyone else, Catch As Catch Can is a chance to explore a new aspect of Heller's remarkable career. "

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 Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man; Something Happened; God Knows; Picture This; and Closing Time (the sequel to Catch-22). Heller died in December 1999.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Years before the publication of Catch-22 ("A monumental artifact of contemporary literature" -- The New York Times; "An apocalyptic masterpiece" -- The Chicago Sun-Times; "One of the most bitterly funny works in the language" -- The New Republic), Joseph Heller began sharpening his skills as a writer, searching for the voice that would best express his own peculiarly wry view of the world.

In Catch As Catch Can, editors Matthew J. Bruccoli and Park Bucker have for the first time collected the short stories Heller published prior to that first novel, along with all the other short pieces of fiction and nonfiction that were published during his lifetime. Also included are five previously unpublished short stories, most reflecting the influence on Heller of urban naturalist writers such as Irwin Shaw and Nelson Algren.