Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Something Happened | 1974 | Joseph Heller | Buy |
| 2 | Good as Gold | 1979 | Joseph Heller | Buy |
| 3 | God Knows | 1984 | Joseph Heller | Buy |
| 4 | Picture This | 1988 | Joseph Heller | Buy |
| 5 | Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man | 2000 | Joseph Heller | Buy |
Joseph Heller wrote five standalone novels across his career, all of them satirical in nature. Something Happened (1974) was his long-awaited follow-up to Catch-22 and took thirteen years to write. It presents the interior monologue of a corporate middle manager whose comfortable life is permeated by dread and paranoia. The book received polarized reviews but has gained admirers over time.
Good as Gold (1979) targets Washington politics through the story of a Jewish-American professor angling for a government position. God Knows (1984) retells the story of King David as if he were a modern, wisecracking narrator looking back on his life. Picture This (1988) uses Rembrandt’s painting of Aristotle as a launching point for meditations on art, money, and power across different historical periods. His final novel, Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man (2000), was published posthumously and deals with an aging writer struggling to produce another great work.