Showing posts with label Random House 2010 books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Random House 2010 books. Show all posts

10.17.2010

The recluse in the light

J.D. Salinger made as much a career of hiding from the public as he made doing the writing that made his being a recluse necessary in the first place. His celebrated novel The Catcher in the Rye, captured the imagination of postwar America; reading the exploits of Holden Caulfield became a signpost, a literary rite of passage for generations. Salinger died in January, steadfast in his withdrawal from public life. On Jan. 25, 2011, Random House drags him into the light with Salinger: A Life, a biography of the author by Salinger scholar Kenneth Slawenski, according to the book-publishing Web site Galleycat. (The book’s already out in the U.K.) And when it rains it pours: Galleycat reported previously on a mammoth (800-page) bio also in the works by director Shane Salerno and author David Shields. 

Slawenski’s Dead Caulfields research Web site recently posted this undated video of Salinger late in life — a brief but tantalizing look at the man of mystery.