Bibliograph

J.D. Salinger, a life, Kenneth Slawenski

Type

Label

J.D. Salinger, a life, Kenneth Slawenski

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

resource.biographical

individual biography

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

J.D. Salinger

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

553365097

Responsibility statement

Kenneth Slawenski

Sub title

a life

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 Salingers 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 Salingers first broken heart, Eugene ONeills 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 Salingers unforgettable story in full

Table Of 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

Classification