SOURCE: Review of Portrait of the Artist, as an Old Man, by Joseph Heller. Publishers Weekly 247, no. 22 (29 May 2000): 52.

In the following review, the anonymous critic finds Portrait of the Artist, as an Old Man lacking in profundity but worth reading for the insight it provides into Heller's reaction to his own aging.

This slim posthumous novel [Portrait of the Artist, as an Old Man], playing blithely with the idea of an elderly novelist in search of a subject, is the last thing the author of Catch-22 left us. Although not a profound leave-taking, it is nonetheless a pleasant reminder of the author's great charm and fluency. Eugene Pota, Heller's alter ego here, rifles the back corners of his mind for a new novel that will restore to him some of the luster that shone from his earlier efforts. In the beginning he tries to do something with Tom...