When Joseph Heller learned that the New York Times Book Review's response to his first novel was negative, he and his family were terribly depressed. "Waiting for that review to come out," he later told David Streitfeld of New York, "I didn't think any of us would ever smile again." The New York Times Book Review critic, Richard G. Stern, acknowledged Heller's talent, but declared that Catch-22 "gasps for want of craft and sensibility. . . .the book is no novel."

Despite initial negative reviews, Heller and his work soon won fame. "I believe that Joseph Heller is one of the most extraordinary talents now among us," exclaimed Robert Brustein in The Critic as Artist some ten years after Catch-22 was published. Decades later, Heller's Catch-22 is regarded as a classic which has won a place in American history as well as American literature for its biting social criticism...