- Joyce Maynard And Jd Salinger
- At Home In The World Joyce Maynard Quotes
- At Home In The World Joyce Maynard -
- At Home In The World Joyce Maynard Review
'At Home in The World' is NOT about J.D. Salinger; it's about Joyce Maynard. And it's a beautifully written and deeply moving memoir. There are many other comments on this site, so I'll only focus on one aspect of the book: the fact that Maynard writes about Salinger at all. When it was first published in 1998, At Home in the World set off a furor in the literary world and beyond. Joyce Maynard's memoir broke a silence concerning her relationship―at age eighteen―with J.D. Salinger, the famously reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye, then age fifty-three, who had read a story she wrote for The New York Times in her freshman year of college and sent her a letter that.
I’m sure a lot of people come to Joyce Maynard’s book Joyce Maynard And Jd Salinger
At Home In The World Joyce Maynard Quotes
looking for a sleazy inside scoop on the author’s relationship with J.D. Salinger, but I came to it through The Lucy, who called it an amazing story. (I responded with a recommendation of George Weigel’s Faith, Reason and the War Against Jihadism. It’s what makes the relationship work.) I agree with that assessment, but it really has less to do with Salinger at all and more with Maynard’s willingness to face up to the realities of being a teenager, a writer, and a human.
At Home In The World Joyce Maynard -
Maynard had an article published in the New York Times Magazine entitled “An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back At Life,” which caught the eye of Salinger and touched off an extremely messed up relationship. However, Maynard’s book is about much more than that relationship, and that’s why it’s so interesting. She grew up in a very disciplined family, where academic achievement was held above all and deep neuroses ran through the entire family tree. This upbringing left her feeling isolated and unsupported, setting the stage for Salinger’s control of her life. Maynard seems to have been drawn to memoirs throughout her writing life, and in At Home, she documents her moment of realization: she wrote deeply, but never about the most painful realities of her life. I hope that writing At Home helped her realize that exploring those dark corners of one’s life makes for some of the most interesting and most human writing available.
At Home In The World Joyce Maynard Review
It’s a sad book, really – Maynard struggles with an abusive relationship, an eating disorder, sexual dysfunction, mental health challenges – but it is beautifully written, and that skill makes it an important book, particularly for young women. It’s so difficult to gauge your own feelings and emotions, and having this kind of raw insight into another person is invaluable. Maynard has done something very brave here, and I commend her for it – the result is top notch.