Two social concerns predominate in God Knows, both of which Joseph Heller has addressed in earlier novels.
One is the breakdown of the family, which Heller first fully treated in Something Happened (1974; see separate entry).
In God Knows we witness incredible violence, antipathy, and back stabbing within the family unit, made all the more complicated by the fact that David's offspring are from different wives. The other concern is the human fixation upon gaining and maintaining power, which Heller exposed in Good as Gold (1979; see separate entry).
In God Knows, politics intrudes in the relationships between Saul and David and between David and his sons over succession to the kingship, and even in David's relationship with Bathsheba as she withholds sex to manipulate him to follow her will in choosing a.....
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