Closing Time received wide critical acclaim: according to one reviewer, it showed "a national treasure at work," and it brought renewed recognition of Mr. Heller's place as one of the greatest and most distinctive of twentieth-century Anerican novelists. His posthumously-published novella Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man (2000) provided critics with further opportunity for appreciative retrospective comment. Mr. Heller's literary achievement brought numerous awards, including the University of South Carolina's Thomas Cooper Medal in 1996. Mr. Heller died on December 12, 1999.