About the author
Joseph Heller was an American novelist and playwright whose wartime experience informed Catch-22. He made bureaucracy comic by treating its impossible rules with complete logical seriousness and terrifying by showing that the rules still have power over bodies.
Around Yossarian, Heller assembles a cast of predators, cowards, and lunatics, each with his own racket: Milo Minderbinder, who turns the mess hall into a global syndicate and bombs his own squadron on contract; Colonel Cathcart, chasing a promotion into the Saturday Evening Post; Doc Daneeka, officially dead because his name is on a flight manifest.
Where to start
Start with Catch-22. Bomber pilot Yossarian wants to stop flying missions, but the rulebook says that proves he's sane enough to fly them.
