Salinger

August 1, 1999
This biography's dustjacket features a blurry photo of an aging J.D. Salinger superimposed on a picture of the young author of The Catcher in the Rye. While designed to capture the elusive quality of the notoriously reclusive writer, the jacket also reflects the book's fuzziness and skimpy feel. Although Alexander, who wrote a biography of Sylvia Plath, interviewed a number of people and used the research files of Ian Hamilton (In Search of J.D. Salinger) and the newly opened New Yorker archive at the New York Public Library, the result is primarily a cut-and-paste pastiche of secondary sources. This is not entirely Alexander's fault; like Hamilton, whose attempt to publish a biography was thwarted in the courts by Salinger, Alexander was unable to quote directly from Salinger's letters, and of course the man himself has long refused to be interviewed. Still, Alexander has drawn an eerie portrait of an increasingly eccentric writer whose attempts to maintain his privacy is actually--in Alexander's opinion--a manipulative way of promoting himself and his books.--Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"

Copyright 1999 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 1999
From the author of the fancifully titled "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (1994) on the life of James Dean, comes this plainly titled, johnny-come-lately with its amply leaded pages (except for the index) sans illustrations. It's what we lived for. ((Reviewed August 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)