- Published: 1 December 2011
- ISBN: 9780099570080
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 288
- RRP: $27.99
Yossarian Slept Here
When Joseph Heller was Dad and Life was a Catch-22

















- Published: 1 December 2011
- ISBN: 9780099570080
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 288
- RRP: $27.99
A finely crafted, wonderfully observed reminiscence on an extraordinary, often traumatic life
Independent on Sunday
An affectionate, no-punches-pulled, often hilarious memoir
Herald
Erica Heller has a story to tell and I for one am eager to see it in print. I think this is going to be one hell(er) of a memoir
Christopher Buckley, author of Losing Mum and Pup
As soon as I read the opening I was determined and eager to consume everything that followed, up to and including the Pot Roast
Christopher Hitchens, author of Hitch-22
Erica Heller to me is like a Carrie Fisher on the East Coast. She is as authentic as they come
Richard Lewis, comedian, actor, author
Heller's family memoir brims with warm reflections right from the opening chapters... An affectionate family scrapbook crafted with a bittersweet blend of humor and pathos
Kirkus Reviews
Intimate, yet well-researched..comedic and poignant, her many-faceted memoir is rendered in high-definition as Heller recounts meals, travels, parties, arguments, lies, and the serious illnesses that afflicted her and her parents. Writing with wit, compassion, aplomb, and no little wonder at what her father wrought and her mother endured and how this legacy shaped her, Heller presents an involving and invaluable work of personal and cultural history.
Booklist
Heller's domestic side is evoked with painful detail by his daughter, Erica, in her well written, occasionally harrowing memoir, Yossarian Slept Here
Sunday Times
A likeable memoir...Yossarian Slept Here gives us the gruff, arrogant big shot; the smug cocky fellow who sometimes showed up to friend's cocktail parties for the sheer fun of insulting them
Financial Times
Erica Heller...seems to have weathered her girlhood better than most daughters of celebrated literary lions... Heller's book shows a robust acceptance of her father's overbearing personality and Don Draperesque approach to marriage and fatherhood... The New York of the period leaps off the page
Independent
The New York of the period leaps off the page
Emma Hagestadt, Independent
Heller's domestic side is evoked with painful detail by his daughter, Erica, in her well written, occasionally harrowing memoir, Yossarian Slept Here
Sunday Times
Likeable memoir...just as Daugherty is blind to the limitations of Heller's work so he appears resistant to personal criticism of Heller or rebuke. Just One Catch is no hagiography but, of these two biographical accounts on Yossarian Slept Here gives us the gruff, arrogant big shot; the smug cocky fellow who sometimes showed up to friend's cocktail parties for the sheer fun of insulting them
Leo Robson, Financial Times
With wit punctuating lambent nostalgia, Erica Heller brings her father to life in an animated, absorbing fashion, documenting his quirky habits, celebrity, and "invisible, unfathomable inner cycle," but also her parents' divorce and Heller's suffering with Guillain-Barre syndrome. The total effect is akin to leafing through a bulging family scrapbook where one finds a few blurry images among many snapshots in sharp focus. Erica Heller has inherited her father's finely tuned flair with words
Publishers Weekly
Both charming and combative
New York Times