AP article on Maynard
J J R (jrovira@juno.com)
Mon, 21 Sep 1998 19:06:32 -0400 (EDT)
I got this on my AOL news--pretty interesting.
Jim
In Search of Silent Salinger
.c The Associated Press
By JERRY SCHWARTZ
There is a hole in this story, and his name is Jerome David Salinger.
He wrote a few short stories and a novel that shook lives -- ``Catcher in
the
Rye'' -- and then he shut the world out. Since 1965, he has published
nothing
and said little, rebuffing efforts to pierce his wall of silence.
But in 1972, when he was 53, he sent a fan letter to an 18-year-old
college
freshman who had written an article in The New York Times Magazine.
Within
months, they were living together. Months later, he broke off their
relationship.
That would have been the end of it, except that Joyce Maynard was fated
to
become the anti-Salinger -- as open as he is secretive, exposing her own
life
again and again in print.
``Of all the 18-year-olds in America that J.D. Salinger could have
written to
... he invited into his life a person who was almost destined sometime or
another to find her way out of the mist and sit down at a typewriter,''
Ms.
Maynard says.
And she did. Less than half of her new book, ``At Home in the World,'' is
devoted to her time with Salinger, but in those 138 pages she tells more
about
him than has been revealed since the Eisenhower administration.
She might as well have pulled the ears off Bambi.
If the entire book was even 15 percent as bad as a Vanity Fair excerpt,
``it
will bid fair to be the worst book ever written: smarmy, whiny, smirky
and,
above all, almost indescribably stupid,'' wrote Jonathan Yardley of the
Washington Post.
``Just because we are dying to know, does that mean we have a right to
know?''
Elizabeth Gluck wrote in Time magazine. ``Maynard may have written this
story
because she needed to. But she published it because someone was willing
to pay
her to do so. And that is not reason enough.''
But Ms. Maynard is steadfast. This is her story, she insists.
The market for her book would have been smaller had it not involved
Salinger,
she acknowledges, but ``it would still be a good story.'' She did not
consider
writing but not publishing the book: ``I have a family to support, and I
make
no apologies about that.''
She says her book is drawing attention because it provides the first
Salinger
fragments ``in a long time. Like fragments from the Titanic.'' And as for
Salinger's privacy? ``If you want to lead a totally private life, I don't
think that you should be writing letters to 18-year-old girls.''
That is what happened to Ms. Maynard. She was attending Yale when her
picture
-- brown-haired, big-eyed, anorexic thin -- appeared on the cover of the
Times
Magazine. It accompanied her story, ``Looking Back: An Eighteen Year Old
Reflects on Life.''
This first memoir was full of majestic pronouncements about her
generation
(``I made up this all-American everygirl'') but it did not mention her
alcoholic father, a professor and frustrated painter. Or her mother, who
gave
up an academic career to breathe for her children.
The story drew hundreds of letters, but the one from Salinger stood out.
Ms.
Maynard had not even read ``Catcher in the Rye'' at this point, but she
knew
about Salinger, about his celebrity and his seclusion.
A correspondence started, and then there were phone calls. He told her
that
they were ``landsmen,'' a Yiddishism meaning that they were from the same
place, soul mates. Finally, she quit school and moved in with him.
The portrait of Salinger that emerges in ``At Home in the World'' is of a
crank. Ms. Maynard's Salinger is a control freak. He is obsessed with
homeopathic medicine; a strange diet consisting of nuts, cheese,
vegetables
and ground lamb patties cooked at 150 degrees (he taught her how to
induce
vomiting after eating foods that were deemed unhealthy); the treacheries
of
publishing and of fame.
The book details their problematic sex life, and the disintegration of
their
relationship. Salinger disapproved of Ms. Maynard's desire for celebrity,
her
willingness to put her picture on the jacket of the book-length version
of
``Looking Back.'' The covers of his books are plain.
After eight months, Ms. Maynard says, during a trip to Florida with his
children, Salinger told her they were through. She should go to the New
Hampshire house, remove her belongings, and be gone.
This is not the end of Ms. Maynard's book. It goes on to describe her
marriage, an abortion, her divorce, a forcible sexual encounter, her
parents'
deaths, her children's lives and more.
She has covered much of this material before. For Ms. Maynard, it has
been
suggested, the unpublished life is not worth living. This is, after all,
a
woman who wrote about having her breasts augmented, and then wrote about
having her breast implants removed.
She writes about her life, she says, because she knows it best. As a
child of
an alcoholic whose affliction was never discussed, she grew too
accustomed to
secrets.
``One review of the book said, `Joyce Maynard is shameless.' That's true!
I
decided to give shame up, and what a relief it was. I can reveal regret
and
sadness and even dismay, but I am not a bad person.''
Through the years, she has drawn a fierce base of fans, some of whom have
become friends and active participants in her life.
When she needed a place to get away and write the book, readers lent her
a
house. When she needed a place to meet the press in New York, readers put
her
up in the Essex House on Central Park South.
She has her own Web site (www.joycemaynard.com). There, fans can read
about
Joyce and chat with and about Joyce. Most support Ms. Maynard's decision
to
tell all about Salinger.
``The story in question is not Salinger's story to tell or quell. It's
Joyce's
story,'' writes DeanQ.
``Isn't the reason people object to Joyce's revelations about Salinger
...
that he does not conform to what they want him to be? And why shouldn't
she be
able to tell her story after the shabby treatment she received from a
predatory male?'' asks mick.
Occasionally, the critics are heard. ``I knew a guy who worked at a
crematorium and stole gold out of the teeth of the bodies and ashes ...
he saw
nothing wrong with that,'' writes Holden. ``I used to think I'd pass his
number on to the police, but hey, he's single, maybe JM would like him?''
In fact, Salinger's fans are all over the Web -- every bit as devoted as
Ms.
Maynard's and more numerous, though he encourages them not at all. If Ms.
Maynard is celebrated for her willingness to invite readers into her
messy
life, Salinger is revered for his purity of vision and his refusal to
open up.
Salinger has written for more than 30 years but refuses to publish. When
quotes from his works were reprinted on Web sites, Salinger unleashed his
literary agents, Harold Ober Associates, to order them removed.
In Cornish, N.H., his neighbors respect Salinger's choices, and have no
respect for Ms. Maynard's.
``What she's doing is despicable,'' said state Rep. Peter Burling. ``We
certainly aren't going to open any doors to folks that are attracted here
because of that book. If anything, we'll probably be a little tighter
lipped.''
Orange ``No Trespassing'' signs are nailed to nearly every tree on the
dirt
road to Salinger's house. The man who lives inside, Ms. Maynard says,
speaks
with the voice of his most famous creation, Holden Caulfield.
It is Holden, in ``Catcher in the Rye,'' who says he would ``pretend I
was one
of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any ... stupid
useless
conversations with anybody.''
Ms. Maynard does not understand why the world goes along.
``A man kind of dictates the rules about how he is to be treated, and for
30
years, people do what he says. I can't think of another public figure --
and
he IS a public figure -- who has been allowed to do that. He's not a
monster,
but he's not a god. He's a man.''
AP-NY-09-20-98 1154EDT
Copyright 1998 The Associated Press. The information contained in the
AP
news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
distributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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