Closing Time

Closing Time is a novel that returns to characters from Catch-22, now old men in New York in the later twentieth century. Sam Singer, Yossarian and others look back on the war while facing age, illness and the approach of death. The book mixes memory with satirical glimpses of modern America, politics and the fear of an ending. Heller writes with his familiar dark comedy, but the tone is more reflective and sombre. It works as a sequel for readers of the earlier book, offering a thoughtful meditation on how wartime experience stays with a generation.