3.5
Salinger
ByPublisher Description
An instant New York Times bestseller, this “explosive biography” (People) of one of the most beloved and mysterious figures of the twentieth century is “as close as we’ll ever get to being inside J.D. Salinger’s head” (Entertainment Weekly).
This “revealing” (The New York Times) and “engrossing” (The Wall Street Journal) oral biography, “fascinating and unique” (The Washington Post) and “an unmitigated success” (USA TODAY), has redefined our understanding of one of the most mysterious figures of the twentieth century.
In nine years of work on Salinger, and especially in the years since the author’s death, David Shields and Shane Salerno interviewed more than 200 people on five continents, many of whom had previously refused to go on the record about their relationship with Salinger. This oral biography offers direct eyewitness accounts from Salinger’s World War II brothers-in-arms, his family members, his close friends, his lovers, his classmates, his neighbors, his editors, his publishers, his New Yorker colleagues, and people with whom he had relationships that were secret even to his own family. Their intimate recollections are supported by more that 175 photos (many never seen before), diaries, legal records, and private documents that are woven throughout; in addition, appearing here for the first time, are Salinger’s “lost letters”—ranging from the 1940s to 2008, revealing his intimate views on love, literature, fame, religion, war, and death, and providing a raw and revelatory self-portrait.
The result is “unprecedented” (Associated Press), “genuinely valuable” (Time), and “strips away the sheen of [Salinger’s] exceptionalism, trading in his genius for something much more real” (Los Angeles Times). According to the Sunday Times of London, Salinger is “a stupendous work…I predict with the utmost confidence that, after this, the world will not need another Salinger biography.”
This “revealing” (The New York Times) and “engrossing” (The Wall Street Journal) oral biography, “fascinating and unique” (The Washington Post) and “an unmitigated success” (USA TODAY), has redefined our understanding of one of the most mysterious figures of the twentieth century.
In nine years of work on Salinger, and especially in the years since the author’s death, David Shields and Shane Salerno interviewed more than 200 people on five continents, many of whom had previously refused to go on the record about their relationship with Salinger. This oral biography offers direct eyewitness accounts from Salinger’s World War II brothers-in-arms, his family members, his close friends, his lovers, his classmates, his neighbors, his editors, his publishers, his New Yorker colleagues, and people with whom he had relationships that were secret even to his own family. Their intimate recollections are supported by more that 175 photos (many never seen before), diaries, legal records, and private documents that are woven throughout; in addition, appearing here for the first time, are Salinger’s “lost letters”—ranging from the 1940s to 2008, revealing his intimate views on love, literature, fame, religion, war, and death, and providing a raw and revelatory self-portrait.
The result is “unprecedented” (Associated Press), “genuinely valuable” (Time), and “strips away the sheen of [Salinger’s] exceptionalism, trading in his genius for something much more real” (Los Angeles Times). According to the Sunday Times of London, Salinger is “a stupendous work…I predict with the utmost confidence that, after this, the world will not need another Salinger biography.”
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesSalinger Reviews
3.5
“This has to be the most authoritative oral biography I've ever read. Shane Salerno and David Shields really did their research on this one. They go deep into Salinger's early life, war years, and publishing years. Of course once Salinger decided to stop publishing, then they have to rely on conjecture. They do manage to talk to friends and lovers of Salinger who have never spoken on the record before. Even though Salinger would hate it, the authors do a commendable job finding every crumb they can about Salinger's reclusive years. Sometimes the details can be a bit much and unnecessary. But the context this gives to Salinger's literary output cannot be understated.
With all that being said, I do have to talk about the dark stain on J. D. Salinger's character, that stain being his very weird and problematic attraction to really young women (in some cases underage). I can't say definitively that Salinger did anything illegal. However, some of the letters he wrote to these women seem like grooming, particularly in Jean Miller's case (who Salinger met when she was 14 and he was in his 20's). The book also talks about Joyce Maynard and her controversial memoir. It seems that Salinger loved the purity of these women, but once their relationship was consummated, he was cold and sometimes outright cruel to them. The authors believe this obsession goes all the way back to his relationship with Oona O'Neil and how she eventually left him for Charlie Chaplin (another man with a problematic attraction towards younger women). Plus the PTSD he experienced in WW2 and the Vendantic Buddhism he would eventually submit to. I can sympathize with Salinger's mental anguish, but that's not an excuse for the way he behaved towards other people. It seems that Salinger should've been in therapy instead of seeking out young women and trying different religions. I think the main lesson is that we shouldn't put other people on a pedestal. We're human and we are fallible. Though in Salinger's case he seemed more fun to read than actually meet.
With that tangent aside, this is the most fascinating oral biography I've read. It gives me a greater appreciation for Salinger's work. Despite his flaws, I still believe J. D. Salinger is one of the greatest American writers of all time. His knack for dialogue and syntax was highly unique when he published his work more than a half-century ago. I highly encourage everyone to gives his work a try.”
“I picked up this book on a thrift run having zero idea of how much my soul would hurt for the man it was about when I read it.
He was of such a brilliant mind. His creative works were not for everyone but as the pages turned you understood the man through the voices he brought to life. The Catcher In The Rye was what he wanted to say but could not put his own name to the page except as it's author.
He lived--physically anyway--through five of the worst battles WWII offered and lived to try and tell the stories. The body count was over 100%. Imagine trying to put a number to that? And these men are right beside you, in front of you, behind you and somehow you and a handful of others walk out of that forest and off of that block of sand, or out of those jungles.
There is a quote from the book, one of many that haunts me.
"The pain was severe and profound, and he couldn't fully face it or alleviate it. Desperate for cures, he destroyed himself: withdrawal, silence, inward collapse. The wounds undid him, and he went under."”
“I didn’t realize when I first found this book six or so years ago that it was a companion to the documentary film of the same name, nor did I realize that the book acted basically as a transcript for the doc rather than its own standalone work. If I did, I might not have bothered.
Now done reading, I feel like translating a documentary into text just doesn’t work—at least, not in the way the authors went about it. The non-linear narrative was often frustrating. The text consisted of chunks of what I assume were interviews from the people that took part in this documentary, but without the context of who many of these people were their names were entirely lost on me. I don’t know if there are other Salinger biographies out there, but I’d recommend looking into other options for those curious to learn about his life. Ultimately I got the info I came for, but it wasn’t a very pleasant reading experience.
On Salinger himself, I will say this; through reading this biography I found that he treated the women in his life really despicably, often young women of 18 or younger. I think the biographers were not harsh enough with their outlook on this pattern in his behavior.”
About David Shields
David Shields is the author of fifteen books, including the New York Times bestseller The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead; Reality Hunger, named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications; and Black Planet, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His work has been translated into twenty languages.
Other books by David Shields
Shane Salerno
Shane Salerno is the director, producer, and writer of Salinger, which premiered theatrically in 2013 from the Weinstein Company and will debut as the 200th episode of American Masters on PBS in early 2014. In addition to Salinger, Salerno has written and produced a number of successful films and TV series. He most recently co-wrote and served as executive producer of the critically acclaimed film Savages, directed by three-time Oscar winner Oliver Stone.
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