Research Catalog

J.D. Salinger : a life

Title
J.D. Salinger : a life / Kenneth Slawenski.
Author
Slawenski, Kenneth.
Publication
New York : Random House, c2010.

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TextUse in library JFE 11-1145Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
x, 450 p. : ill.; 24 cm.
Summary
One of the most popular and mysterious figures in American literary history, J.D. Salinger eluded fans and journalists for most of his life. Now comes a new biography. Filled with new information and revelations, garnered from countless interviews, letters, and public records, this work presents his extraordinary life that spanned nearly the entire twentieth century. The author explores Salinger's privileged youth, long obscured by misrepresentation and rumor, revealing the brilliant, sarcastic, vulnerable son of a disapproving father and doting mother and his entrance into a social world where Gloria Vanderbilt dismissively referred to him as a Jewish boy from New York. Here too are accounts of Salinger's first broken heart (Eugene O'Neill's daughter, Oona, left him for the much older Charlie Chaplin) and the devastating World War II service of which he never spoke and which haunted him forever. This work features all the dazzle of his early writing successes, his dramatic encounters with luminaries from Ernest Hemingway to Laurence Olivier to Elia Kazan, his surprising office intrigues with famous New Yorker editors and writers, and the stunning triumph of The Catcher in the Rye, which would both make him world famous and hasten his retreat into the hills of New Hampshire. Whether it is revealing the facts of his hasty, short lived first marriage or his lifelong commitment to Eastern religion, which would dictate his attitudes toward sex, nutrition, solitude, and creativity, this biography is Salinger's unforgettable story in full.
Subjects
Note
  • "Originally published in the United Kingdom as 'J.D. Salinger: a life raised high', by Pomona Books, West Yorkshire, England, in 2010"--T.p. verso.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (p. [417]-434) and index.
Contents
Sonny -- Ambition -- Indecision -- Displacement -- Hell -- Purgatory -- Recognition -- Reaffirmation -- Holden -- Crossroads -- Positioning -- Franny -- Two families -- Zooey -- Seymour -- Dark summit -- Detachment -- Farewell -- The poetry of silence -- Coming through the rye.
Call Number
JFE 11-1145
ISBN
  • 9781400069514 (hc. : alk. paper)
  • 1400069513 (hc. : alk. paper)
LCCN
2010008926
OCLC
553365097
Author
Slawenski, Kenneth.
Title
J.D. Salinger : a life / Kenneth Slawenski.
Imprint
New York : Random House, c2010.
Edition
1st U.S. ed.
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (p. [417]-434) and index.
Research Call Number
JFE 11-1145
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