In Search of J. D. Salinger, A Biography - Hardcover

Hamilton, Ian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394534689 ISBN 13: 9780394534688

Publisher: Random House, 1988

Synopsis

Pursuing the elusive writer in documents and interviews with friends and acquaintances, the author has pieced together an extended study of Salinger, tracing his life from Park Avenue childhood to his encounters with literary fame

About this title

Reviews

This embattled biography has been revised because of the legal suit Salinger instituted to stop publication, and the most valuable part of the book is Hamilton's proud and indignant exposition of those long proceedings, torturous to him and endangering, he feels, to Constitutional freedoms. At issue were Salinger's unpublished letters, and Hamilton is rightly disturbed by the fact that, in covering the case, newspapers and magazines were able to print the very correspondence he was restricted from using. He wonders: "Can we assume that the letters have been released into the public domain, that they are no longer 'unpublished' ? Would the Random House lawyers now let me put them back into my book?" The answer is no, and in its spelling out of Salinger's "writing life" (even in his original version, Hamilton only chronicled that life up to 1965, when Salinger stopped publishing), the biography is a dry, adequate chronology of publication dates and landmark events that lacks passion and driveperhaps the natural result of recounting a life so obsessively removed from engagement with the world. Within the text, Hamilton refers to himself and his biographer "alter ego" as "we," an affectation that distracts the reader.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This work, scheduled for release in August 1986, was abandoned after Salinger successfully sued to enjoin publication on the grounds of copyright violation. This book is an attempt to salvage the biography and, at the same time, to describe the problems Hamilton faced in writing the life of an author who prefers to remain hidden. Ironically, Salinger's suit to crush the biography caused him to relinquish some of his cherished privacy. Moreover, Hamilton's account of Salinger's conduct during the legal battles actually reveals more of Salinger's character than the snippets of letters that appeared in the original work. Essential reading for anyone interested in Salinger. Highly recommended for all literature collections. William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0394534689
• ISBN 13: 9780394534688
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 222