J. D. Salinger, Kenneth Slawenski
J. D. Salinger, Kenneth Slawenski
List: $23.99 | Sale: $16.79
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J. D. Salinger
A Life

Author: Kenneth Slawenski

Narrator: Norman Dietz

Unabridged: 19 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/31/2011


Synopsis

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 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: A Life 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 of which he never spoke, and which haunted him forever.

J. D. Salinger features all the dazzle of this author's 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's 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, J. D. Salinger is this unique author's unforgettable story in full—one that no lover of literature can afford to miss.

About Kenneth Slawenski

Kenneth Slawenski is the creator of DeadCaulfields.com, a Web site founded in 2004 and recommended by the New York Times. He spent eight years working on his biography of J. D. Salinger. Kenneth was born in New Jersey and has lived there his entire life.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jeff

I didn't have the heart to give it one star; but had I the gumption, I would have. For a moment, I'll set aside the irony that a Salingerphile who goes to great lengths to assert the author's privacy-obsession wrote a biography about him, and focus on why Random House gave a book deal to a guy who s......more

Goodreads review by Corey

J. D. SALINGER by Kenneth Slawenski I grew very impatient with this biography of the famously reclusive Salinger. First, it is nearly a hagiography, being way too worshipful of its subject. Was Salinger really “a prophet?” Too often Slawenski is guilty of embarrassing hyperbole. For instance, in rec......more

Goodreads review by Alburty

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I bought the book and how long I took to read it and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in......more