Closing Time – Joseph Heller (1994)

Closing Time by Joseph Heller, published in 1994, is the long-awaited sequel to the legendary satirical war novel Catch-22. Set decades after the events of its predecessor, the novel revisits a cast of aging World War II veterans, particularly Yossarian, who now grapples with mortality, bureaucratic absurdities, and a decaying American culture. Moving from the battlefield to the confines of hospitals and corporate boardrooms, Heller delivers a dark, reflective meditation on old age, death, and the cyclical nature of history, all laced with his trademark irony and surrealism.

Plot Summary

In a world that refuses to grow quiet, where the echoes of war never truly fade, a group of aging men drifts toward their final days, each tethered to memories they cannot outrun. The skies above Pianosa have long since cleared, the bombs no longer fall, but Yossarian, the once-defiant bombardier, remains trapped in a private war against time, illness, and meaning. Sixty-eight years old and in perfect health, he resides in a hospital not out of necessity but out of fear. The world outside – polluted, overrun with corruption, and riddled with idiocy – holds no comfort. Inside, at least, he can flirt with a nurse, toy with dread, and pretend to take comfort in Mozart.

He is not alone. Across the years and boroughs of New York, Sammy Singer, who once flew beside him in the war, now walks among ghosts, haunted by the boy he was and the friends he left behind. His mind drifts to Howard Snowden, who bled out in a bomber over France, and to a world of janitors, calliopes, and vanished Coney Island summers. Sammy understands what it means to vanish slowly, to become an echo in a city that never listens.

Lew Rabinowitz, built like a tank and carrying the bluster of old Brooklyn pride, is determined not to go quietly. A former POW with a face for confrontation and fists that once threatened Italian punks into friendship, he rises each morning ready to fight anything – except time. His body betrays him in ways he refuses to accept. Doctors prod and scan, offer medications and gentle lies, but Lew rages against the dying of his health with the same blunt force he once used to swing copper pipes from burnt amusement parks. His stubbornness becomes a form of mourning, and he doesn’t even know it.

Meanwhile, Milo Minderbinder has not changed. The war may be over, but his enterprise thrives in peacetime as it once did in chaos. From vintage Egyptian cotton to stealth bombers, he sells anything that turns a profit. His morality is buried beneath spreadsheets, his ambition unchecked, his partnerships increasingly sinister. Milo does not merely embody capitalism – he weaponizes it.

Yossarian, surrounded by these revenants and reminders, senses the invisible bombers in the sky. He speaks of them not with fear, but with resignation. Something dark and vast lingers overhead – a conspiracy, perhaps, or maybe just the shadow of the past. Names like Wintergreen and the chaplain resurface, fragments of another life where logic died in a bureaucratic loop. The war that shaped them all continues without uniforms, disguised as commerce, policy, and polite television appearances.

The President, a hollow shell of charisma, resigns. His successor, a puppet of mediocrity, steps in. Nobody laughs anymore, not even the comedians. Yossarian’s hospital room becomes a sanctuary of ennui, the air thick with chamber music and flirtation with Nurse Melissa MacIntosh. She becomes both escape and burden – her financial fragility and soft-hearted sincerity pull at something tender in him. He promises her Paris, Florence, maybe even love, but both know it’s a promise made to be forgotten. Their encounters are all postponements, deferrals of the inevitable.

Even his body refuses to help him. It thrives in its stubborn wellness. Tests return clean, reflexes sharp, cholesterol enviable. His health is immaculate, and that, he insists, is the real danger. For a man like Yossarian, health offers no alibi. And so, he devises new symptoms, imagines tumors in his throat, conscripts oncologists and psychologists to explain the void. All fail. He is too healthy to die, and too old to believe in that health.

His youngest son, Michael, floats from one failed ambition to another. Law school, business, architecture – each abandoned before it could become a fate. Yossarian sees too much of himself in the boy, except without the war, without the absurd heroism that once gave shape to the chaos. He fears for the son, for the world, for a future where everyone prepares to die but no one knows how to live.

Lew faces his own apocalypse in silence. He watches his body revolt, dignity leak from him drop by drop. He has loved, perhaps not wisely, perhaps not always well, but fiercely. He clings to the concrete things – businesses, debts, enemies – while the intangible slips through. The ghosts of German captors, dead friends, and failed ambitions crowd his thoughts. He dreams of fists, of shouting down fate. But fate, like age, does not care for shouting.

Sammy wanders the city with the air of a man searching for something that was never really there – a sense of belonging, of coherence. He finds only empty streets and his own reflection in the glass of old candy stores. He remembers the boardwalk, the ring of carnival music, and the way the ocean once whispered promises he could still believe in.

And through it all, the invisible bombers hum. They do not drop explosives anymore. They drop stock options, mortgage rates, and the grinding inevitability of actuarial tables. Death no longer arrives in a flash – it drips in through leaking faucets and slow diagnoses. Yossarian senses their presence, but there is nothing to be done. Even escape, the one thing he was ever good at, offers no refuge now.

When the Belgian man arrives at the hospital – mute, mutilated, and foreign in every way – Yossarian’s refuge collapses. The screams, the moans, the smell of decay – they pull back the curtain of comfort and expose the body’s betrayal. Melissa grows distant, harried by duty. The hallway becomes a gauntlet of death. Yossarian feels a scratch in his throat and knows it for what it is – the beginning. Not of illness, but of understanding. He cannot wait any longer.

He leaves the hospital, not in victory but in retreat. He leaves Melissa behind with promises neither believe. He leaves the detectives who followed him, the nurses who humored him, the specialists who found nothing. He leaves without ceremony, one more vanishing man in a city that has forgotten how to notice absences.

And somewhere above, or maybe just inside the hollows of memory, the bombers keep flying. No alarms ring. No targets are marked. They do not need to be. The damage has already been done.

Main Characters

• Yossarian: Once the sardonic bombardier of Catch-22, Yossarian now finds himself a weary, cynical, and health-obsessed old man. Living in a world as absurd as the one he fought in, he remains haunted by past traumas, the specter of death, and a growing sense of irrelevance. His biting wit remains intact, but it is now undercut by resignation and dread.

• Sammy Singer: A childhood friend of Lew Rabinowitz and a former tail gunner, Sammy is thoughtful, literate, and quietly introspective. He serves as a kind of civilian conscience in the story, musing on memory, identity, and the erosion of meaning in the postwar American landscape.

• Lew Rabinowitz (LR): Brash, assertive, and self-assured, Lew is a pragmatic builder and entrepreneur whose physical and emotional resilience is constantly tested. Despite his tough exterior, Lew is a deeply nostalgic man struggling to maintain a sense of control as he faces aging and the diminishing of his old certainties.

• Milo Minderbinder: The infamous profiteer from Catch-22 returns, now thriving in the military-industrial complex. His character remains a sharp symbol of unchecked capitalism and moral ambiguity, this time peddling not just chocolate and Egyptian cotton but military hardware.

• Melissa MacIntosh: A hospital nurse with whom Yossarian develops a flirtatious relationship, Melissa is younger and represents both a romantic distraction and a poignant emblem of fleeting human connection in an impersonal world.

• Michael: Yossarian’s youngest son, Michael embodies a generation adrift. An underachiever and perpetual student, he reflects Yossarian’s concern for the future and the legacy left behind.

Theme

• The Inevitability of Death: Death looms large over Closing Time. Yossarian and his peers confront their physical decline and the specter of their mortality. Heller presents death not only as a biological fact but as a societal and spiritual force that diminishes dignity and purpose.

• The Absurdity of Modern Life: Echoing the satirical tone of Catch-22, Heller critiques modern institutions—government, healthcare, business—with scathing absurdity. The logic of bureaucracy, the commercialization of healthcare, and the superficiality of politics all underscore a world still governed by irrationality.

• Memory and Nostalgia: The novel is steeped in reminiscence. Characters reflect on their youth, their wartime experiences, and the people they’ve lost. This theme adds a mournful depth, contrasting the energetic rebellion of Catch-22 with the quiet despair of remembering.

• Decay of the American Dream: Through characters like Milo Minderbinder and settings like the decaying urban landscape of New York, Heller critiques the commodification of American values and the illusion of progress. The dream has withered into bureaucracy, greed, and spiritual exhaustion.

• Identity and Displacement: Many characters, especially the Jewish ones like Lew and Sammy, reflect on cultural assimilation, generational trauma, and lost connections to heritage. Their identities feel fragmented, torn between past convictions and present ambiguities.

Writing Style and Tone

Joseph Heller’s prose in Closing Time is rich with dark humor, biting irony, and philosophical digressions. Unlike the manic energy of Catch-22, the tone here is more subdued, tinged with sorrow, bitterness, and wistful introspection. His sentences frequently juxtapose grim truths with comedic undertones, creating a uniquely jarring and reflective reading experience.

Structurally, Heller employs a fragmented, non-linear narrative that mirrors the disjointed memories of aging men. Long monologues, internal dialogues, and shifting perspectives invite readers into the psychological landscapes of characters rather than focusing solely on plot. He continues to blend the real and surreal—ghosts of old wars, literal and figurative hauntings, and layers of satire that drift into existential terror.

Though some moments are laugh-out-loud funny, the laughter often catches in the throat. The humor in Closing Time is less about rebellion and more about recognition of life’s futility, corruption, and the quiet tragedies of everyday existence.