With Love and Squalor

October 1, 2001
Fourteen writers reflect on the impact of J.D. Salinger's oeuvre on their lives and work in With Love and Squalor, edited by literary agent Kip Kotzen and Open City founding editor Thomas Beller (The Sleepover Artist). Walter Kirn recalls having Catcher in the Rye snatched from his hands and hurled across the college dining hall immediately after John Lennon's murder by Mark David Chapman; Chapman believed the book gave him permission for the killing. Emma Forrest describes her effort to become the kind of young person " `invented' in the fifties by the two J.D.s Salinger and James Dean" in order to deliver the goods to her newspaper editor. Lucinda Rosenfeld weighs Franny and Zooey's unimpressive rebellions against what she sees as the nearly perfect prose of their eponymous book.

September 1, 2001
This collection of short essays by 14 contemporary fiction writers joins the spate of books celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of Catcher in the Rye. It stands out because most of the writers come from an intermediate generation not those who had to sneak around to read Salinger before his work made its way into the canon, nor those being routinely assigned it today. Also, the emphasis here stays mainly on the work rather than the recent revelations about the man though several contributors grapple with the separation between the author and his books, and urine drinking is mentioned more than once. The pieces are personal rather than adulatory and so provide good models for student work. Thus, Lucinda Rosenfeld is more critical of Franny now than she was in her "Salinger phase." Jane Mendelsohn remembers a smart, funny preppy but now sees Holden Caulfield's darker, death-obsessed side. Aleksandar Hemon thinks Salinger's greatest asset is "his respect for children and the interest in the world that he shares with them." With its reasonable price, this collection is recommended for public and academic libraries. Mary Paumier Jones, Westminster P.L., CO

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2001
The fiftieth anniversary of the publication of "The Catcher in the Rye" has garnered quite a bit of attention, and in this anthology of thoughtful, articulate essays, young writers weigh in with their views on Salinger and his fiction. Love him or hate him, Salinger as well as his works have had a lasting effect on all of these writers. Many encountered him for the first time in high school, where "Catcher in the Rye" was required reading more often than not. Essays by Rene Steinke and Charles D'Ambrosio concern loss, sorrow, and isolation as seen through Salinger's eyes, and their own. Novelists Emma Forrest and Lucinda Rosenfeld both express their disappointment with Salinger; Forrest for having to live up to the ideal of youth he created, and Rosenfeld for her dissatisfaction with Franny's breakdown in "Franny & Zooey." Even the minor characters are significant, John McNally argues, both in Salinger's work and in our own lives. These intelligent and reflective essays will have readers eagerly reaching for their copies of Salinger's books. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)