Something Happened is a long novel narrated by Bob Slocum, a middle-aged executive at a large American company. He lives in a comfortable suburb with his wife and children, yet he is shadowed by anxiety, boredom and a sense that his life has quietly gone wrong. Through his restless, confessional voice we see office politics, strained family relations and fears he cannot name. Unlike Heller's first novel, it is a close study of one inward mind rather than a wartime farce, though dark humor remains. It is a sharp portrait of postwar corporate and suburban life and its quiet unhappiness.
Quotes
Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur.
I think that maybe in every company today there is always at least one person who is going crazy slowly.
It's a real problem to decide whether it's more boring to do something boring than to pass along everything boring that comes in to somebody else and then have nothing to do at all.
Because Andy Kagle is good to me and doesn't scare me any longer, I despise him a little bit too.