One entry from his literary top ten at Pulp.Net:Most Under-Rated Second NovelRead about another item on Cross' list.
Something Happened by Joseph Heller. Catch-22 is not a satire on war: it’s a satire on the logic of consumerism, on the individual's attempt to exercise freedom within the moebius strip of insanity. I don't know if it’s the best first novel ever written, but it would certainly be my candidate. Something Happened, more than a decade in the writing, was not such a hit. But it inspires in fans of Heller an equally rabid devotion. It’s a bleak satire on corporate life, on middle-age, on marriage. It’ll come to be regarded as Heller’s masterpiece, one of the great books of the previous century.
Something Happened appears on Luke Leitch's list of ten cursed second novels.
--Marshal Zeringue
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