With Love and Squalor: 13 Writers Respond to the Work of J. D. Salinger

by Kip Kotzen, Thomas Beller

Overview

Reading The Catcher in the Rye has become a rite of passage for young Americans, landing the book on bestseller lists (and banned book lists) each year, even though it was published a half century ago. What is it about J. D. Salinger and his body of work that has left such a lasting mark on American fiction? And who better to answer that question than the current generation of writers?

Here are fourteen of the most vital voices in the contemporary American fiction scene pulling no punches in response to a writer who continues to beguile, charm, fascinate, and frustrate generations of readers. Contributors Walter Kirn, Ren? Steinke, Charles D’Ambrosio, Emma Forrest, Aleksander Hemon, Lucinda Rosenfeld, Amy Sohn, John McNally, Karen E. Bender, Thomas Beller, Benjamin Anastas, Aimee Bender, Joel Stein, and Jane Mendelsohn turn themselves inside out as they discuss their personal reactions to reading Salinger classics–not only The Catcher in the Rye but also Franny and Zooey, Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters, and the short stories–and explore, with begrudging gratitude, how Salinger helped to form the deepest reaches of their literary imaginations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780767911214
Publisher:	Crown Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/11/2002
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	306 KB

About the Author

KIP KOTZEN is a literary agent who divides his time between Los Angeles and New York. THOMAS BELLER is the author of two works of fiction (Seduction Theory, stories; The Sleep-Over Artist, a novel) and a founding editor of Open City magazine and mrbellersneighborhood.com. His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories and The New Yorker, and he is a contributing editor to The Cambodia Daily.

Editorial Reviews

Fourteen writers reflect on the impact of J.D. Salinger's oeuvre on their lives and work in With Love and Squalor, edited by literary agent Kip Kotzen and Open City founding editor Thomas Beller (The Sleepover Artist). Walter Kirn recalls having Catcher in the Rye snatched from his hands and hurled across the college dining hall immediately after John Lennon's murder by Mark David Chapman; Chapman believed the book gave him permission for the killing. Emma Forrest describes her effort to become the kind of young person " `invented' in the fifties by the two J.D.s Salinger and James Dean" in order to deliver the goods to her newspaper editor. Lucinda Rosenfeld weighs Franny and Zooey's unimpressive rebellions against what she sees as the nearly perfect prose of their eponymous book. (Oct. 16) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

This collection of short essays by 14 contemporary fiction writers joins the spate of books celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of Catcher in the Rye. It stands out because most of the writers come from an intermediate generation not those who had to sneak around to read Salinger before his work made its way into the canon, nor those being routinely assigned it today. Also, the emphasis here stays mainly on the work rather than the recent revelations about the man though several contributors grapple with the separation between the author and his books, and urine drinking is mentioned more than once. The pieces are personal rather than adulatory and so provide good models for student work. Thus, Lucinda Rosenfeld is more critical of Franny now than she was in her "Salinger phase." Jane Mendelsohn remembers a smart, funny preppy but now sees Holden Caulfield's darker, death-obsessed side. Aleksandar Hemon thinks Salinger's greatest asset is "his respect for children and the interest in the world that he shares with them." With its reasonable price, this collection is recommended for public and academic libraries. Mary Paumier Jones, Westminster P.L., CO Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

A handful of young(ish) writers map their responses to J.D. Salinger's work in essays that range from loose and funny to remarkably uptight, gathered by Poughkeepsie Review founding editor Kotzen and novelist Beller (The Sleep-Over Artist, 2000, etc.). Slice him this way or that, Salinger has been an enormous influence on American literature. Kotzen and Beller asked 14 writers to consider their reactions to his writing, and the result is this jangle of pieces that knock about in Salingerland, for better or worse. Walter Kirn suggests that great books fade into the background while triggering self-centered memories, and if his writing-school essay is any measure of that indulgence, then The Catcher in the Rye is a very great book indeed. Emma Forrest administers Salinger the defibrillator-"Salinger is the literary equivalent of a pedophile: the child's world equals good and all adults are fake and phoney. That's how a pervert thinks"-and then turns it on herself: "I don't think that people who are phoney are necessarily a bad thing," embarrassingly invoking Vonnegut to support her contention. Lucinda Rosenfeld is devilishly perceptive and fast to draw a sleeve across the windpipe, while noting that "brilliant writing tends to steam-roll everything in its path." And Karen Bender is more specific in seeing "how characters disappeared into their gestures, dialogue, and how Salinger's breath was transformed into perception, scene, craft." Jane Mendelsohn shifts between some bedrock material, recognizing in Salinger kids' first encounter with "two kinds of truth and that negotiating between them marks the beginning of the end of childhood," and some really fruity stuff, like Catcher isn'tabout understanding but rather "all about death." Half of the writers here will cringe when they read their words in 20 years, but the rest provide some humdinging stuff, as much tortured fun as their subject.

Kirkus Reviews