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Something Happened

Front Cover
105 Reviews
Simon & Schuster, 1974 - Fiction - 576 pages
Bob Slocum was living the American dream. He had a beautiful wife, three lovely children, a nice house...and all the mistresses he desired. He had it all -- all, that is, but happiness. Slocum was discontent. Inevitably, inexorably, his discontent deteriorated into desolation until...something happened.

Something Happened is Joseph Heller's wonderfully inventive and controversial second novel satirizing business life and American culture. The story is told as if the reader was overhearing the patter of Bob Slocum's brain -- recording what is going on at the office, as well as his fantasies and memories that complete the story of his life. The result is a novel as original and memorable as his Catch-22.

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User ratings

5 stars
13
4 stars
33
3 stars
15
2 stars
32
1 star
7

Not nearly as good as Catch 22 and I hated the ending. - Goodreads
Mesmerizing, familiar, repulsive, polished writing. - Goodreads
Similar wit, but at an even more boring pace. - Goodreads
This is not the result of sloppy writing or editing. - Goodreads
I don't know if that's his style in all his writing.) - Goodreads

Review: Something Happened

User Review  - Del Herman - Goodreads

Joseph Heller's second novel (after his masterpiece "Catch-22") is a thoroughly engaging read, an insightful satire to American business and personal life in the sixties and seventies, and a portrait ... Read full review

Review: Something Happened

User Review  - Rick Bowen - Goodreads

Was convinced when I first read it that this was the most important literary work of Heller's generation (the generation BTW 30 years before mine). Ostensibly a performance piece a la Portnoy's ... Read full review

All 105 reviews »

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Contents

Section 1
3
Section 2
6
Section 3
13
Copyright

30 other sections not shown

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About the author (1974)

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 Good as Gold, 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.

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