Closing time
(Book)

A darkly comic and ambitious sequel to the American classic "Catch-22." In "Closing Time, " Joseph Heller returns to the characters of "Catch-22, " now coming to the end of their lives and the century, as is the entire generation that fought in World War II: Yossarian and Milo Minderbinder, the chaplain, and such newcomers as little Sammy Singer and giant Lew, all linked, in an uneasy peace and old age, fighting not the Germans this time, but The End. "Closing Time" deftly satirizes the realities and the myths of America in the half century since WWII: the absurdity of our politics, the decline of our society and our great cities, the greed and hypocrisy of our business and culture -- with the same ferocious humor as "Catch-22." "Closing Time" is outrageously funny and totally serious, and as brilliant and successful as "Catch-22" itself, a fun-house mirror that captures, at once grotesquely and accurately, the truth about ourselves.