J.D. Salinger a Life

One of the most popular and mysterious figures in American literary history, author of the classic Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger eluded fans and journalists for most of his life. Now comes a new biography that Peter Ackroyd in The Times of London calls "energetic and magnificently researched"-a book from which "a true picture of Salinger emerges." Filled with new information and revelations-garnered from countless interviews, letters, and public records-J. D. Salinger presents an extraordinary life that spanned nearly the entire twentieth century. Kenneth Slawenski 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 ("a living hell") of which he never spoke and which haunted him forever.