First published 2010
J.D. Salinger remains one of American literature's most enigmatic figures, the creator of Catcher in the Rye who spent decades hiding from public view. Kenneth Slawenski draws on extensive interviews, personal letters, and public records to construct a complete portrait of Salinger's nearly century-long life. The biography traces his privileged but complicated youth under a critical father and protective mother, his painful romantic rejection by Eugene O'Neill's daughter Oona O'Neill, who left him for Charlie Chaplin, and his traumatic World War II military service that he described as "a living hell." Slawenski chronicles Salinger's early literary successes, his encounters with figures like Ernest Hemingway and Laurence Olivier, his complex relationships with New Yorker editors, and the massive success of The Catcher in the Rye that drove him to retreat to rural New Hampshire. The book explores his brief first marriage, his deep commitment to Eastern religious practices, and how these beliefs shaped his approach to creativity, relationships, and daily life. Peter Ackroyd praised the work as "magnificently researched," noting how "a true picture of Salinger emerges" from Slawenski's investigation.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, american, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: New Hampshire, New York
Period: World War II
450 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: war