Joe the Plumber vs. Joe Heller, the Writer

It's official. The world has gone mad. Again.

Sarah Palin will get $7 million+ to write a book? To tell us more than we ever, ever wanted to know about herself (hasn't she already?), bore us to tears with how tedious, inarticulate and stupendously clueless she is, and waste many trees?

Joe the Plumber will now be Joe the Writer, also for some shocking and obscene amount of money?

Aah but the literary world was not always so whorish, swinish and unrepentant.

In 1961, many lifetimes ago, just imagine.

John F. Kennedy was our 35th President.

The Defenders was #1 on television.

Roger Maris hit 61 home runs to take the home run record.

Valium and non-dairy creamers were all the rage.

Bye Bye Birdie was on Broadway and West Side Story won the Oscar for best picture.

If you've seen Mad Men (and if you haven't, why haven't you?), you know what the fashions were like.

And as for the economy, buying a new car cost $2,275.

Gasoline was 33 cents a gallon.

A postage stamp was 4 cents.

Minimum wage was $1.15 an hour and an average annual salary was $6,471.

Pretty cool, eh daddy-o?

The cost of a hardcover book was roughly $5 and a paperback 50 cents.

Against this backdrop, my father's first novel, Catch-22, was published. He'd worked on it for 8 years, only evenings and weekends, since he had a full-time job, a wife and small kids to support. It was a labor of love and although his belief in it was absolute, there was no guarantee of a publisher, an audience, an advance.

He'd grown up in Coney Island, in Brooklyn, in a family without money. His father died when he was small and his mother, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, barely spoke English.

After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1941, he immediately got a job as a file clerk for an insurance agency. Later that year, when the United States entered World War II, he took a job as a blacksmith's assistant in the Norfolk Navy Yard.

In 1942, as the war progressed, he joined the Army and worked as a file clerk. In October, he switched to the Army Air Forces. As he told it, and he told it well, he initially intended to be a gunner on a bomber but when he was told, in error, that the average life span of a gunner in combat was three days, he quickly enrolled in cadet school to become an officer and bombardier.

I'm awfully glad he did.

Catch-22 was based on his experiences as a bombardier with the 12th Air Force in the Mediterranean in World War II and after eight long years of very hard work, with poor reviews from some of the most influential publications, Catch 22 got off to such a slow start, it's truly a miracle that it didn't just fade away completely. It surely would have if not for the strong recommendations of people who had read it and passed it along to friends. One such reader was S.J. Perelman.

Eventually, it sold millions of copies in the paperback version. Schools still have it on their reading lists today and it can be found in almost 100 languages. It was tough getting published in those days and for his grand achievement, my father received an advance of $1500, the equivalent today of a few decent meals of sushi, a couple of iPhone payments and an occasional Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino Blended Creme, but not Venti, merely Grande.

Today, of all the things I am most proud of about my father's writing, it is his scathing indictment of the madness and stupidity of war, government and big business, all recounted in such passionate and pitiless detail, that still resonate resoundingly.

And now, onto that illustrious stage of authors, along with Kurt Vonnegut, James Jones and the rest of the best of the best, strut authoress and author, Palin and Mr. Plumber, with their books certain to be ghosted by some unsung schnooks, manuscripts that will be comprised mostly, I'm betting, of little more than bragging, lying and recycling some very stale air. For their efforts, they will be awarded gargantuan advances, piles of money that could feed several Third World nations for some time. Or OUR nation, since there are still so many hungry, weary, homeless and wanting. Not all of us are plucked from obscurity and wrapped in Valentino or held up as a poster-child for the working man. Some people have to actually work at it and at times, there is even talent, skill, and a magical, indefinable creative spark magnificently ignited in the process.

Madness and stupidity are, alas, not limited to the arena of war. The publishing world seems to also have stepped in it, as it does from time to time, and will now leave us its grimy footprints to follow, the real Bridge to Nowhere.

Comments

[sykadelic chic]

5 million advance?!? Do any established, good authors that deserve book sales actually get advances that large, or do only celebrities that only have their name to go on?
Because that makes me nauseous.

Though like others have said, at the very least, these books will have a 'sale-by' date, as your father's book is a classic that will still be read by the generations to come. In ten years, these fakebooks by fake 'authors' won't even be on store shelves.

[gretchenart]

publishing will lose money on the books unless the rethugs buy them up as their new "Bibles". Maybe it is all in the advertising!

[HIHS]

I came here from the Guardian Newspaper who were commenting on this article and I have to agree with the Guardian It sounds like you're saying that Joe and Palin aren't worthy to write their thoughts and message on paper, that some how you need to prevent what they're saying from getting out. All because your father wrote a fantastic book you've suddenly become the gatekeeper to what should or shouldn't be allowed to be published.

Half the books I read are trash, they're there to kill time, to take me off somewhere for a few hours. No way these books are in the same league as catch 22 but should these books be not published. Should the likes of Clive Cussler not be on the bookshelves because they are not master pieces. nonsense

And by not having Joe the plumber and Palin writing their views, how on earth are we ever going to get an idea of what the other side think. sure they don't speak for everyone but a lot of people do identify with them. How are we meant to engage with them if we shut the debate down. If we pretend that an alternative line of thinking doesn't exist. that’s only going to lead to bad news.

so as much as I love your fathers book, which had me go right through a range of emotions when reading it. their books deserve just as much to be on the bookshelf as your fathers.

[3fingerbrown]

Well written--the typewriter didn't fall far from the tree. My only quibble is, Haven't junk books always been with us? If we could visit a book shop circa 1961, wouldn't we find some crappy quickies "written" by 15-minute celebrities? After a lifetime poking around moldy used-book stores, I can say, yeah, there was probably a lot of schlock and crackpot opinions published the same week "Catch 22" came out. From this historical distance we see only the highest literary monuments.

[luke150]

Palin's book will be well written - because she will not write it. It is sad, but that's the reality. From 300 million Americans, there will be enough to buy the book, give Sarah the 7 mil and make tons of money for the publisher and the bookstores. Business as usual.

[JacqueItch]

I like what you've written here.
Couldn't agree more with you.
The publishing industry, typical of corporate thought, seeks profit----the more the better.
The content is secondary. It is raison d'etre taken to basest level.
If anything has altered by a logarithmic factor since your father served in that madness it is America's insane preoccupation with celebrity. If the person is on TV, radio, movies, magazines or billboards they are famous, and by extenuation more interesting and valuable than the un-imaged.
Their words and thoughts also are more valuable, even when their content is nearer invertebrate than evolved.

It is another form of madness: one a little less bloodsmeared than Yossarian's, but one just as incomprehensible..

[trisha08]

Can the fans of Palin and Joe the Plumber actually read? I kind of thought they were anti-education and worshipped at the feet of stupidity.

[joesnuffy]

There used to be a time when people would set their minds to doing something, and if they did it well, they might become famous for it. Fame was a byproduct of the achievement. Today, simply becoming famous is the end goal. How to actually get there is beside the point. If you talk to many young people today about what their ambitions are, they respond by saying they want to be famous. Our society has become so superficial and empty to the point where the likes of Sarah and Joe can rise to stardom and get a boat-load of money simply for being well-known, however mediocre they may be. The really sad part is that their books will sell, the publishers will do well, and our society will continue on its downward spiral.

[medici]

The publication of Palin's and JTP's books is a sad footnote to the dumbing down of the U.S. of A.

[aznurse]

only if people buy them

[WilliePilgrim]

I hope they're paid enough money to choke a horse, though I'd rather it not go that far. Greed, like virtue, usually comes along with its own "reward" and I hope they get it in spades.

[Billie]

Yes, the Big 6 of today's publishing conglomerates will publish (or try to) anything that reeks of big profits. Case in point: the sago of O.J.'s Why I Did It (or how, i forget the title). Now it appears that Sarah Palin will be handsomely rewarded for her poisonous, divisive campaign rhetoric, lack of historical knowledge, inability to form a complete, coherent sentence, but mostly because she is good-looking. Let's hope this "tome" never makes it to the New York Times bestseller list. After all, life is short and there are much more nourishing reads out there. But I betcha when it comes out, there it will be, on bestseller lists everywhere. And this will encourage the publishing titans even more to reject some real author with talent and imagination in order to put their advertisin­g/marketin­g machines behind some piece of crap like this Palin book promises to be. I hope Americans just read the quotes from the book the newspapers will print and leave this stinker on the shelves. Plus, we all need to watch our pennies now, right?

[Bliss149]

I read Catch-22 lying on a scratchy wool Army blanket in my barracks in Germany. Of COURSE I loved it.

Another book by your father meant a lot to me too - "Something Happened". Don't hear a lot about that one but I just loved that book.

[sandiegoAD]

"Catch 22" means a lot to me and I'll tell you why. It was my first reading assignment for my very first class as a freshman in college. I remember it fondly because it got me my first "A" and kicked off my college career in a spectacular fashion. I still have the book. It is completely covered in green highlights. Don't laugh, that's how I studied 12 years ago.

Miley Cyrus, of Hanna Montana fame, also inked a deal with Disney to write a book for $5M. She's 16 years old. How exciting her journey to puberty must be! Sarah Palin's book will be some sort of Palin & Todd Excellent Adventures and be ghost-written by someone else with a few "gotchas" and "also" thrown in at the end of sentences for a realistic effect. JTP's book will be about something he has a complete lack of understanding of, be it plumbing or socialism. All these books will probably sell well for a few months then go into the "discount" bins at K-mart or 99-cent stores.

My point is this: In twelve years time, no one will be blogging about how they were intellectually challenged by them. No one will still have a copy of it covered in highlights. No one will attach any meaningful life moments to them. No one will ever say that any of these books kicked off their college career in any way, shape or form.

"Catch 22" has.
"Catch 22" will.

[Beernuts]

Erica..Thank You. I probably owe my life to your father and in his honor, I reread Catch-22 entirely at least once a year and a few pages when I need a good laugh or a dose of reality. I first read the book while drying off on the sand at Redondo Beach, a naive "beach boy" boomer with images of "The Sands of Iwo Jima" and "Wake Island" leading me to believe it was my patriotic duty to stop the dominos from falling in Southeast Asia. Never really had thought to ask my Dad why he didn't want to talk about his "time" piloting the landing craft or why he woke up screaming so many nights. No...it was your father's book that gave me some insight into the absurdity of war (with side-splitting laughs, nonetheless) and the courage to start asking questions of my government and better yet, of my friends who were fortunate to have returned only missing an arm or other limb or partially paralyzed.
Author is the term for your father. Shill sounds about right for Palin and Joe the Plunger.

[darthdarcy]

It just goes to show you Erica:

"All change is for the worse..!"