J. D. Salinger

Starred review from December 13, 2010
After nearly a decade’s research and Slawenski’s obvious empathy with his reclusive subject’s search for emotional and philosophical equilibrium, this exemplary biography will be released on the first anniversary of J.D. Salinger’s death. It’s a highly informative effort to assess the arc of Salinger’s career, the themes of his fiction, and his influence on 20th-century American literature. Born in 1919, indulged by his mother while growing up on Park Avenue, Salinger was a bored and indifferent student. He eventually found a mentor in legendary Columbia professor Whit Burnett, who encouraged him to work on the pieces that became The Catcher in the Rye even while Salinger was serving in WWII Europe. Slawenski emphasizes that Salinger’s wartime experience, from D-Day to the liberation of Dachau, “was the traumatic turning point in his life,” influencing the sense of futility that permeates his early work. Salinger’s salvation, Slawenski demonstrates, came through his acceptance of Vedatic Buddhism, and he argues persuasively that Salinger came to consider writing an aspect of meditation, a task that demanded solitude and perfect control over the presentation of his fiction. The celebrity surrounding the publication of Catcher in the Rye in 1951 activated the split between his striving for asceticism and the demands of the outside world. Slawenski describes Salinger’s three marriages, records his contentious relationships with his publishers, his special relationship with the New Yorker, and Slawenski’s assiduous research allows him to identify and assess many obscure and unpublished stories. In total, an invaluable work that sheds fascinating light on the willfully elusive author. B&w photos.