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My Salinger Year (2014)

by Joanna Rakoff(Favorite Author)

3.66 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0307958000 (ISBN13: 9780307958006)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Knopf

review 1: Breezy chick-memoir. A middle-class college graduate gets a first job in her native New York City, at a firm representing the famous recluse J.D. Salinger. The New York literary agency scene of the early 90s is lively; Salinger "mania" is explored well; Joanna's attempts to find herself in writing and in love are convincing; unfortunately, none of it has much lasting insight, literary or otherwise.
review 2: I think, in another life or if I had the time, I would have liked to work in the world of literary agencies and publishers, just to see all the manuscripts, query letters, and fan mail that come in. "My Salinger Year" allowed me to do that. I must admit, when I first read the premise of this memoir, I thought it was quite self-indulgent. I mean, who real... morely wants to hear about your one year of being a menial assistant at a literary agency that had J.D. Salinger as its main client, whom you spoke to on the phone very briefly whilst connecting him to your boss (his agent). Talk about trying to stretch a name drop into a book. But, there was something about the book design and the behind the scenes of a literary agency that did intrigue me (see above on wanting to work in the publishing world). I saw the book at my library and figured, hey, why not? It doesn't cost me anything. I am so glad I picked it up. From the first page I was drawn into the author's post-grad world, where she is trying to find her way into being a writer, being an adult, a New Yorker (with the terrible housing situations to match). It's her life, that was supposed to go smoothly as an English lit grad student, and she shook it all up by dropping out of her program. On the skids, so to speak, she finds herself in a horrible apartment, with a pretty bad live-in boyfriend. Somehow, J.D. Salinger, whose work she had never read, becomes a compass in her life, as the author was for his agency. Their small interactions come to mean so much. I loved getting a peek into the literary world and reading about Salinger's fan mail, realizing how much he had meant to many readers. As someone who has never read Salinger, I actually have an appreciation for him from this book. I truly loved though the escapist aspect of being one of the "girls' who aspired to do something in the literary world. I didn't live that life, but, through Rakoff's details, I feel like I saw what it would be like. Her writing tone was perfect in expressing the tension she felt in those days, the confusion over her future (and this made the book a NOT pleasant night time read; I think the tension kept me from sleeping). I think the fixation on Salinger wasn't totally expressed sufficiently because one can still ask how she remembers so much detail, particularly about the fan mail she received and answered. But she does it well enough. I don't think one needs to be hardcore Salinger fan or even a Rakoff fan, perhaps just a fan of modern publishing. less

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