Salinger biography 2011 dodge

Where were you when J.D. Salinger died on Jan. 27, 2010?

Salinger biography 2011 dodge

I can never forget: I was on the campus of William & Mary, trying to get a little work done before teaching my class, but people kept calling and e-mailing to ask whether I’d write Salinger’s biography now that he was finally dead.

The possibility had occurred to me (having published a biography of John Cheever, another New Yorker chronicler of postwar middle-class malaise), but only if I could get the family’s approval in the form of a legally binding agreement.

Snooping into Salinger’s life, after all, has always been a dicey business, as biographer Ian Hamilton learned to his enduring sorrow.

Salinger v. Random House—the lawsuit brought to keep Hamilton from quoting Salinger’s letters—resulted in a drastic overhaul of so-called “fair use” law, rendering the whole genre of unauthorized biography a lot less fun for everyone.

(Reading a subsequent attempt by Paul Alexander, Salinger: A Biography