J.D. Salinger, Thomas Beller
J.D. Salinger, Thomas Beller
List: $35.99 | Sale: $25.20
Club: $17.99

J.D. Salinger
The Escape Artist

Author: Thomas Beller

Series: Icons

Narrator: Grover Gardner

Unabridged: 5 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 06/03/2014


Synopsis

J.D. Salinger published his first story in The New Yorker at age twenty-nine. Three years later came The Catcher in The Rye, a novel that has sold more than sixty-five million copies and achieved mythic status since its publication in 1951. Subsequent books introduced a new type in contemporary literature: the introspective, hyperarticulate Glass family, whose stage is the Upper East Side. Yet we still know little about Salinger’s personal life and less about his character.This was by design. In 1953, determined to escape media attention, Salinger fled to New Hampshire, where he would live until his death in 2010. Even there, privacy proved elusive: a Time cover story; a memoir by Joyce Maynard (who dropped out of Yale as a freshman to move in with him); and a legal battle over an unauthorized biography, which darkened his last decades. Yet he continued to write, and is rumored to have left behind a mass of work that his estate intends to publish.Thomas Beller, a novelist who grew up in Manhattan, is the ideal guide to Salinger’s world. He gives us a sense of life at The New Yorker (where he was once a staff writer) and a portrait of editor Gus Lobrano, whose relationship with Salinger has rarely been written about. He visits Salinger’s summer camp and the apartment buildings where the author lived. He reads the famous works with obsessive attention, finding in them an image of his own life experience. The result is a quest biography about learning to know yourself in order to know your subject. J.D. Salinger is the triumph of a rare literary form: biography as work of art.

About Thomas Beller

Thomas Beller is the author of Seduction Theory, a collection of stories; The Sleep-Over Artist, a novel; and How to Be a Man: Scenes from a Protracted Boyhood, an essay collection. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker‘s Culture Desk, has edited numerous anthologies including two drawn from his website, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, and was a cofounder of the literary journal Open City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Larry on February 25, 2022

This is a short book that was published and also apparently recorded in 2014. JD Salinger died in 2010. This is a short book slightly more than five hours in the audible version and part of what makes it interesting it is almost as much about the author of the book as it is about JD Salinger. It con......more

Goodreads review by britt_brooke on December 25, 2022

This - from the #IconSeries of brief biographies - was an intriguing look at one my favorite authors. Beller is a bit self aggrandizing, but it didn’t affect my enjoyment. I liked hearing about his research process. This was my second Salinger biography; I’ll soon get to my third. When you love some......more

Goodreads review by Christine on April 03, 2015

I really don’t see where Beller gets off criticizing Margaret Salinger’s unauthorized biography of her father. I venture to guess that she knew him better than Beller did. Oh, wait, did Beller even meet him or did he just travel around to Salinger’s old haunts, hoping to get a glimpse of the J.D. Sa......more

Goodreads review by Howard on November 02, 2023

This review will also mention Shirley Hazzard's Greene on Capri [which I gave a 3* review and read about a month ago]. The Escape Artist and Greene on Capri are both short portraits/biographies of fiction authors, by literary authors. I am a big fan of Greene and have read at least 5 of his novels.......more

Goodreads review by Linda on July 02, 2014

Confused writer I enjoyed the insights about J.D. Salinger. At times, the author focuses on his own life and other areas of non-interest. The book also jumps around in time without a purpose. It could have been so much better if examples of Salinger's words were used to illustrate his points.......more


Quotes

“Beller offers a uniquely literary inquiry into the combatively reclusive and epically blocked author of The Catcher in the Rye and beloved short story collections…A fine and stirring portrait of a haunted literary artist.” Booklist“Beller…focuses on the minutiae of Salinger’s existence, the small details that Shields’ biography skimmed over.” —Lit Reactor“Funny…Entertaining.” Newsday