At the last count, J.D. Salinger’s seminal work The Catcher in the Rye, had sold 65 million copies. At the book’s early and extraordinary success, when the world’s press began to beat a path to his door, an increasingly reclusive Salinger responded by holing up in a bunker, and refusing to give any interviews. He died aged ninety-one, in early 2010, but in all that time no one penetrated his famous reserve, although three books have been written about him, including one by his daughter, and there was a last interview — conduct- ed thirty years ago.
Drawing on these books, delving into the sparse cor- respondence and writings on or by Salinger, Kenneth Slawenski has pulled off an impressive coup, connect- ing the iconic author’s extraordinary life with what he reluctantly shared with the world.
This took Kenneth Slawenski seven years to accom- plish, dogging Salinger, as it were, through his traumatic war experiences - including during the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp — his three marriages, his disappointed love in Oona O’Neill and the final years devoted to Zen Buddhism, Catholic mysticism and fi- nally, the teachings of the Indian saint Sri Ramakrishna. Slawenski’s biography is a sensitive retelling of the life of a shy man who invented some of literature’s most unforgettable characters.
