I read and disliked Maynard's writing years ago when she wrote a column for - what? The
Boston Globe? The NY Times? She was young and mouthy and quite taken with her own writing and her own life as subject matter. That she eventually slept with Salinger (or maybe it was about the same time) seemed to be a key conquest to her. Sorry, Joyce, no sympathy here. Your late in life apologia just doesn't hold water.
5
Rather than blame everyone, why not address why you had to blab (about personal stuff)--was it not to get ducats and fame?
And why must an older man be overpowering? Aren't women powerful -why must they be portrayed as weak and gullible and not the agents of their own destiny? (Much like female prostitutes are forever portrayed and hapless, unwitting victims of male pimps. Sometimes it is true, but a rare day it is.)
Women are quite powerful and wile and able-even ones just 25.
8
I think the lesson here for 18-year-old girls is that when an older, successful, famous man shows an interest in you, that interest is usually a mixture of intellectual and physical attraction.
This is your opportunity to exploit or be exploited.
If you're willing to accept a relationship with lots of benefits that might last a year until the next 18-year-old comes along, here's your chance.
Sometimes these flings turn into the opportunity of a lifetime to advance your career. Sometimes I've seen them actually lead to a permanent relationship and actually marriage. But sometimes you just have to take them for whatever they're worth. Keep a diary.
People swear eternal love, they have breakups, and it's painful for all. Even men get hurt.
But if you took a poetry course at Yale, you should have known all this. Lover's promises are written on the wind, Catullus and all.
11
same old same old. only to promote yet another joycey rag. she might be old enough by now to do some real writing, without relying on the use of the endless salinger connection.
6
I haven't read the book that she wrote but I do remember the article in the Magazine section of the New York Times.
From this article I don't see the abuse.
I see a relationship that ended.
We aren't given any indication why it ended.
All we are told that he told her to leave and it appears he did not tell her anything else.
From this I think it logical to assume Joyce Maynard did not want to leave.
If she did she would be happy that the relationship was ending and that part of the story would not be told the way she does in this article.
It is easy for her to bring this up now when he can not defend himself.
It does not appear that he stopped her from being a successful writer or was she traumatized.
What happened to her happens to many when a relationship ends.
She felt rejected.
It's not good for your peace of mind and can make someone feel that they were worthless.
This has nothing to do with the me too issue.
There are men and woman whose partner has cheated with one of their relatives like a sibling and left their partner to live with that person.
Terrible because it's a act of betrayal especially from a person you trusted but also is not a me too moment.
People have emotions or are in a mental state that they will do things that can harm those they love.
Maybe that was the reason he told her to leave.
At worse this is abuse of a personal nature that can take place in a relationship but is not the type that me too is about.
10
@John says:
"We aren't given any indication why it ended."
In JM's memoir, she discloses that the turning pt for JDS was: they were on a beach together and JD saw a kid running around; he said: "I'm too old for this". Shortly after that, JM returned to NH to move out of JD's home.
1
@John Abuse of a personal nature, where there is an unbalanced relationship (older, famous, admired male vs. vulnerable female still in her teens) is yes one type that "me too" is about. There isn't just one narrow type.
17
@John, try reading the book before deciding what is or isn't relevant.
6
Maynard is just a little older than I am. I remember reading the Sunday Times Magazine cover article. I disliked her but I disliked the Times more for raising her up as a symbol of her generation that nobody asked for. She certainly didn't represent me. I remember some parody articles that followed by people who were similarly offended.
But later when I read at Home in the World I was sympathetic. Although shocked that a young woman with a seemingly brilliant future would give it all up to live with a Great Writer in the 1970s, I didn't doubt her account.
11
I read Ms. Maynard's book when it came out. It was brutally honest about her family. I was very touched. Since then, we have learned about Mr. Salinger. He was a veteran of the Second World War. He fought in the Hurtgen Forest battle in Germany, one of the worst of the war. He probably carried the memories till his dying day.
2
More power to you, Joyce Maynard. Salinger was a pedophile--that sticks out all over his writing, and shame on the men who question your right to discuss what happened to you. He's a writer. An interesting writer. A writer who reinvented the vernacular. But also, in the end, a predator.
http://www.thecriticalmom.blogspot.com
13
I cannot speak to her writing skills, but she has impeccable timing.
2
He was a predator but she was a consenting young adult.
5
She was 18, on the cusp between childhood and adulthood. Remember when you were 18? Would you have trusted any decision you made then to be valid at age 30?
10
"How would Holden describe Salinger if he were given a chance? Probably as a creepy old geezer, hung up on his own mythology, incapable of true self-reflection, so encrusted and rusted with privilege he can barely turn his head to truly look at someone.?
Spot on and brilliant observation!
13
This is a brilliantly written essay. The ending is stunning. Ms. Maynard has accomplished two huge things here. She makes it crystal clear that Mr. Salinger used his fame and fortune to prey on young women - he let his little head rule the big head. In the precise, finely crafted way she has done it, her own deep literary talent is beyond doubt. Hopefully this will provide some psychic compensation for the all the turmoil she has had to deal with for most of her life - because of J. D. Salinger.
31
Thank You for your persistence and courage. I have enjoyed your books much more than Salinger's overrated booklet about a teenage narcissist: it seems he was writing about himself.
6
I find her to be a very gentle and easy read. The situation itself seems to have aroused others but I see it merely agreed consent. Charming prose.
Unless I am seriously mistaken Salinger was a man, a human, not a god. It is completely beyond me how some people are so unfulfilled and needy that they identify so strongly with a person that they do not even know. And they vilify a person who simply told the truth about a centuries old story of a famous older man using his new fame to acquire what he could not when he was younger- a petty girl.
5
Joyce Maynard's experience and many of the comments here reflect a persisting fact of female life that when women love men they put at risk absolutely everything: their hearts and the future course of their lives; they risk their self-regard and social standing; they risk their health and they risk pregnancy; they even risk violence and even death. They gamble all that they are and all they may ever be. Some do this as girls, others as women. They all commit themselves in uncertainty, with incomplete knowledge, and with unknown unknowns. They bet on boys and men of no merit, no status, no promise, and no worth - and on men with something they see, feel, or sense. JDS was a giant of literature and an enigma. Joyce Maynard has illuminated truth for history to record and all to learn from. Facts of life, and of literature.
18
Well said. Joyce Maynard, you’re a sound minded intelligent and interesting lady with a past worth discussion.
J. D. Salinger was a creep. He did nothing for you. You did lots for him. He dared not write up what you did or why he begged you to do it.
Pretty simple.
Teach your past. It’s valuable. Hurts no one, will help many.
26
Whoever accuses an 18 year old of being a predator is worse then the predator himself, in this case, J.D. Salinger.
34
Salinger was a great writer - that's for sure. But for a famous man in his early 50s to seduce a kid, bring her into his cloistered, and then dump her with a $100 tip is just beyond reprehensible. Times have changed and Joyce Maynard deserves our understanding, our admiration, and her support.
44
Cassandra , tragic mother to the "me-too-movement," daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, in his effort to seduce her Apollo gave her the power of prophecy. Refused, he inflicted a curse; nobody would believe her prophecies. Joyce Maynard, Monica Lewinsky, Dylan Farrow, the archetype playing out over and over in memoirs, fiction and court records. Perhaps the Greeks were trying to warn us from the very beginning.
15
I don’t see anyone’s problem with Maynard’s reporting. Salinger was a famous person and also famous for his insistence on privacy. He does seem to have had a thing for young girls and used his fame to attract them. It seems fair enough that they let people know what went on especially since some of them appear to be underage.
68
I'm nearing 50 and have only sympathy for women like Maynard and Monica Lewinsky, who were very young when they became enmeshed with older, more powerful men who, frankly, knew better. I find women my age and younger generally feel the same way, but women just a decade older often figuratively spew venom about these women (and Hillary Clinton, of course). Was it because they were raised when there were limited ways for women to succeed and they feel like these women tried to bypass the conventional ways? I don't know, but I won't be sorry when these women who keep women down are gone. (If you are an older woman who supports women, you have my apologies. I know you exist.)
Great piece by Joyce Maynard. She's right--she's not oversharing. She's just sharing WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
33
I am thrilled that Joyce Maynard has re-written that old story.
"A Perfect Day for Banana Fish" is telling.
6
I liked Joyce Maynard then, and I like her now. The worst than you can say of her is that—like a lot of people who went to Yale—she has a somewhat exaggerated sense of self-importance. But unlike many of them she has a genuine story to tell, and she told it.
10
I come to Ms. Maynard's piece as someone who has admired her ability to elevate truth and create a word portrait with her mastery of the language since reading her early essays in Teen Magazine back in the '60s. She has never disappointed. Whether she's writing about living below a mountain in California, writing in Guatamala, or how to make a pie, she has something to say and she says it well. To me, that Salinger was a predator has already been litigated and he is guilty as charged. I hope that with this latest essay, Ms. Maynard's bio going forward can simply say Great American Writer, no footnotes attached.
12
Thankfully Joyce Maynard is a survivor. The Salinger crowd has treated her viciously. I don't blame her at all for making money on her relationship with him - he invited her into his life. It's called freedom of speech.
Her writing has brought new insights into him.
Salinger, like so many gifted people, was also seriously lacking in numerous departments. If his fans don't want to hear about it, too bad - facts are facts.
I wish Ms. Maynard the best. I really do.
30
Joyce Maynard did nothing wrong when she published her account of her time with Salinger. Salinger know full well what he was doing when he lured her to his home, as demonstrated by the way he treated her and other young women.
The most important point to recognize in this story is predicting what the reaction of those who attacked Maynard for her book would have been if it had been Salinger who wrote and published an account of their time together. Those who condemned Maynard would have most likely praised the "genius" of the "great" Salinger for his "artistic honesty."
"Catcher In The Rye" is a good, though overrated, novel. And as events have revealed, its author has been shown to be anything but a good man.
8
As an English major and now a high school English teacher, I have always admired JD Salinger’s works. However, I recognize that some of our great artists are not admirable individuals. It’s repulsive that they have used their position to take advantage of others and even more disgusting that society excuses them. I was never aware of Joyce Maynard, her published memoir, or the harsh criticism she endured as a result. As I read her essay this morning aloud to my partner, I was moved to tears. She is clearly a very brave person and I plan to read her book as soon as possible.
13
If Maynard had not moved in with Salinger, but instead got her Yale degree, we would not have heard nearly as much from her over the years. That relationship is what made her a sought-after writer, and has provided fodder for her essays ever since.
6
That is speculation at best. What happened happened and is part of her history not something to condemn her for. Look at yourself and ask why you think this way? Did you not get that break you dreamed of and need to blame someone else because they were published.
8
Heartbreaking. One of the best essays I’ve ever read. Kudos to the Times for sticking with Maynard after first reacting with misogynist contempt 20 years ago. We are all complicit. Salinger was God, but so was Bill Cosby. Maureen Dowd owes Maynard a column length apology. Maynard is a hero. We owe her a huge debt of gratitude. Thank you, Joyce, for your courage.
38
The first time I, as a teenager, read "The Catcher in the Rye," I admired the Holden Caulfield who battled "phoniness." A second reading a decade later revealed the character's distorted view of himself. Joyce Maynard learned early in life that Salinger, like Caultfield, was a phony, and then 20 years ago told us so. I'm sorry that she's had to endure decades of people, like me, who couldn't hear from her what is obviously true. I hear her now.
19
Thats hilarious. I remember well when I was a teenager. The girls in school were into older "men". In particular, when I was 16, I asked a girl that was 17 for a date. She said I was absolutely too young for her. Now I am 24, and girls around 20 are totally into me. Its not my fault, thats what they want. They want older men. And some even admit they are into much older men. Its biology. Hope nobody is going to jail me for scientific corretness instead of political correctness. I do have a lovely and educated sister and I äsupport any measure of equality such as equal salaries. But its a fact that 90% of all woman are into older partners.
I didnt read her book, but I assume that the type of girl she was during that time wouldnt have been interested in a boy her age.
1
And yet here I am married for ten years to a man 8 years my junior. And last night talking to a woman who was married to a man 10 years her junior until his untimely death. Anecdotally, yes. But so were you.
3
It never ceases to amaze me how dismissive and mean, the majority of great writers, artists, geniuses etc. have been to their women and wives. (Add daughters to that!) For all their "greatness" they are unable to summon up basic human decency and compassion with regard to women. It would seem that the world for them is only a world of men, and women are important and relevant only till the point they can supply their physical charms for their engagement. When the attraction fades, as invariably everything physical does, they discard the object of their desire mercilessly - like an object. Telling. If so called intelligent "greats" view women with this lens, what about lesser mortals??
#MeToo may have arrived, but women still have a long way to go. Or rather, it is men, who have a long way to go..
22
I applaud Joyce Maynard for her courage to expose the dark underbelly of a sacred cow. The backlash that ensued only underscores the sad fact that a woman who tarnishes the reputation of a culturally-approved male icon, regardless of justification, will be slut-shamed relentlessly. The message has always been the same for women who expose manipulation by self-serving men: just shut up and take it.
10
Thank you, Joyce Maynard. We are nearly the same age. I wasn't reading Vogue at 18, so was unfamiliar with your early success, but I remember learning about you and Salinger with envy. Later, when you wrote about your relationship, I felt enormous relief and kinship with you. I hadn't been mentored by a famous man, but I had been similarly treated and felt similarly worthless and used as a result. Whatever its flaws, I'm glad that MeToo gained traction. It's about time the tables were turned.
13
Joyce - I have a file marked "Joyce Maynard," into which I place anything I run across by you or about you, including articles written by your mother (also a fabulous writer) for various women's magazines and your "Domestic Affairs" newsletters from the 1990s. Your writing has always been delicious, and I treasure it all - from the tiny minutia of Barbie to the tragedy of trying to find a cure for your dear husband Jim. Long may you continue to write brilliantly, and we will continue to hang on your every word!
19
As a man three years older than Ms. Maynard, I have to say that she has gotten a raw deal instead of the hearing she deserves. She fell in love with an older man. So what? When men fall in love with younger women, no one bats an eye. I am afraid the double standard is still with us, but maybe not as much. I remember when Norman Mailer stabbed one of his wives with scissors. Somehow he got a pass because he was a man and a famous writer. It was somehow seen as “existential.” We’ve made a lot of progress since then, but not enough. I wish Ms. Maynard all good luck.
73
@Mark Siegel "Fell in love with"? I don't think that's an appropriate way to describe someone who was sought out, cajoled, tricked into believing that a famous writer very much her senior wanted to be with her, and then kicked to the curb months later. The problem here is with Salinger seeking her, a young woman of 18 - the problem is with him being a predator and a manipulator, not her falling in love.
13
How would Holden describe Salinger if he were given a chance? Probably as a creepy old geezer, hung up on his own mythology, incapable of true self-reflection, so encrusted and rusted with privilege he can barely turn his head to truly look at someone. Yet we tiptoe around his myth, swathing him with the cloak of protection geniuses (?) somehow deserve.
And the palsy-walsy gutlessness of a literary establishment that is afraid to criticize its own—heaven forbid they risk offending a potential juror for a literary prize or a cushy residency—doesn’t help much either.
9
I haven't yet read Ms. Maynard's book disclosing the relationship but I know the trauma to the heart that she experienced, the loss of innocence and something beautiful that is hard to reclaim when used and abandoned with such cruelty by the man (or men) we thought truly loved us. The power imbalance along can annihilate the soul; our unique voice and way of seeing, tasting, touching -- the creative life budding into existence. I'm glad Ms. Maynard came to see that her younger self was indeed deserving of protection and care and she found her way to continue writing and telling the truth.This serves her daughter and all young women and those of us who have paid a similar price.
17
What I would like to tell the author, if she is reading this, is: I think they treated you appallingly. I think that what he did and what they did speaks about the assumptions of our culture, not about you. You do not need to be exonerated: you may figure out, for yourself, why and how you acted the way you did, but nobody else has had any business to judge you in the first place.
What to do, when we have been wronged and will not be given our justice? Sometimes I find comfort in thinking: if this had not happened to me, I might have been the one standing up and leaving the room when someone who had been wronged was about to speak.
13
The recurring theme here that I am struggling with is that a younger adult woman is powerless to do anything when involved with an older adult man. In this case, this woman apparently made some choices that don't look too good in retrospect. None of us is who we were 45 or 50 years ago. I don't see why she should be penalized for being human. But I also reject the notion that other (perhaps stronger, smarter) women would have opted differently in the situation Ms Maynard faced as a young lady in Yale.
2
Thank you for publishing this article.
One reader commented, "Brave than, brave now", and I couldn't agree more.
10
I must have missed Mr. Salinger's canonization, or beatification at the least. He'll remain one of my favorite writers, 'tho, feet of clay and all.
Thank you Ms. Maynard...
1
If Joyce Maynard had been Salinger's employee, or student, or other player in a power relationship, I would be more inclined to sympathize with her.
But the root of her claim that she was "prey" are the facts of Salinger's eminence, and his age. If that's the case, then is any famous older man who enters into a sexual relationship with a younger fan, a predator? This rebuttal of Maynard's distress was made by many reviewers in the original pillorying of Maynard's memoir, rebuttal that Maynard chooses not to address here.
The metoo movement is not helped by non-victims who claim victimhood. Consenting adults, generation gaps, bad sex and lover's squabbles are all squeamishly uncomfortable, but where is an abuse of power in Maynard's story? That a world-famous author told her he loved her, so she dropped out of Yale and moved in with him, only for him to then tell her to move out? I see no "courage" in Maynard rehashing her gripes with Salinger, much less in her refusal to let her seething go, already.
7
@Johnny
The roots of her "claim" that she was prey was the discovery that Salinger had a pattern of contacting 18-year-olds with identical come-ons. Something like that might make you re-think your relationship, no?
As for "her refusal to let her seething go" - how about the refusal of the public at large and critics reviewing her work to allow her to move on from a relationship that ended more than 40 years ago?
14
You ignore the details re: what Salinger promised her, and then how he treated her. He, an 'adult', beckoned her with promises of a serious relationship, with the full knowledge that she was giving up a full scholarship to Yale, and her heart, to be with him. Yet after a mere few months, he unceremoniously dumps her, like a new owner who takes a quick dislike to his young puppy. He was the grownup; he either should not have lied to her in the first place, or, if he hadn't lied, should not have picked up with another very young lady after just a month or so with her, not giving the relationship a chance. There is no excuse for immaturity and selfishness on his part.
10
@Kelpie13
I think you are equating "predatory" with "sleazy." No one disputes that Salinger had some yucky qualities. Does that make him gross? Yes. Does that make him a power abuser? No.
And how are the critics keeping Joyce Maynard from finding closure? Maynard is the one who keeps bringing up Salinger. Joyce Maynard's entire career has been built on writing about one thing--HERSELF--and Salinger is by far the most interesting thing that has ever happened to her. So she keeps returning to that well, and blowing a victimhood trumpet.
In her 50s, already a mother of three, Joyce Maynard on a whim adopted two Ethiopian girls. About a year later, she gave the girls up to another family. She mentions that episode in a single chapter of her 2017 memoir The Best of Us. That book is otherwise all about how her husband's cancer affected HER. She is always the victim. Always the narcissist. By her own admission, she treated her husband's children from his previous marriage in the most insensitive and self-absorbed way.
I can only quote Maureen Dowd's original review of Maynard's Salinger memoir: "There are those who say that these women were victims of older men, and so have a right to revenge. But experiencing the ordinary brutality of love does not make one a victim. It makes one an adult. Or it should."
2
Would the author have considered embarking on such an adventure based on a letter from an unknown or much less famous individual? Fame is like a flame to the moths seeking the reflection of the limelight. Whether for thoughts of betterment or shine by associate, naive is not the appropriate word for an adult making a decision they come to rue.
4
Thank you so much for your story and your voice. It is a pity that like so many others have you had to wait until now so that we can give you a real hearing (though it may not ever undo the aspersions that were unfairly cast your way), and an even greater pity that in other places on this earth right now there are women and others undergoing far worse things. It is a wonderful thing that things are changing in some ways for the better this year in this regard, in all countries (or so it seems), and some are speaking out. Getting these stories right is paramount. It must have been so hard all these years.
8
Joyce Maynard, I remember your article that mentioned the Beatles, that ran in the LA Times one Sunday when I was also a teenager. I waited for years for you to continue writing. I have always believed in you. “Having just gone through that year, I know that 16 can be hard.” Am I remembering it correctly nearly 50 years later? I have always had a place for you in my heart.
7
Why is Joyce Maynard once again writing about her relationship with Salinger and being surprised that people have different reactions to the whole episode? She made a mistake in dropping our of Yale and moving in with him. Okay. We get it. And her feelings were hurt. Again, okay. But she cannot deny that she has profited off of her relationship with him, however brief and hurtful it was. That does not take away from her obvious talent as a writer. But here it is again. Her bringing it up and getting it printed for all to read. And then claiming to be a victim. Ms. Maynard, please let it go and let your writing speak for itself and, please, stop writing and talking and analyzing your relationship with Salinger. Enough already.
11
@Lois Wood Joyce was famous before she met Salinger and famous and highly regarded many years afterwards. Educate yourself.
13
@Lois Wood
How about, you write about what you want to write about, and other people write what they want to write about.
8
She’s going back to Yale to finish her degree!
3
Could there be, not one but two predators?
5
Oh so that’s why we never got another masterpiece from his greatness. All his honeyed prose was spent luring teenagers out to his hideout
18
Eighteen year old gets into Yale, gets published in The New York Times at that age, and at 64 has never stopped writing. Start there.
3
I hear she went to Yale.
1
As I remembered the reception of "At Home in the World" as far from "universal condemnation," I a quick google search turned up the archived review in the then-all-important Publisher's Weekly. While there are criticisms therein, overall it's what could be termed a rave.
3
I don't understand all the commenters hating on Maynard for having some of Salinger's letters sold at auction. She certainly had no loyalty to him; she wanted to get rid of the letters; she had two children to support; and she knew the letters would be of interest. I doubt if any of the commenters would have done any differently had they been in her place.
22
Agree. They were hers, not his. Or were they?
4
Isn't this the same newspaper where, barely a week ago, there was an op-ed essay by Roxane Gay was advocating that the "court of public opinion" determine the professional fate of men like Louis C.K.? And isn't that the same "court" that, as Ms. Maynard now writes, ruined her life for so many years?
5
Joyce, we support you and always have
13
I want to identify myself as a male reader. I read this in the morning, and found it to be a stale way to start the day. Maybe I'll give it a look later, but something tells me I and everyone else should just say, "You're right, Joyce." Then we could go on to other topics, instead of re-hashing THIS TOPIC.
And she is right, I think, except that she (and her mother!) volunteered for abuse, which doesn't mean she deserved abuse, but it does set her at a distance, I think, from those who did not volunteer, like those who were abused by Harvey et al.
There are those, it should be noted. including Janet Malcolm, who thought that Monica Lewinski was the aggressive one in the Bill Clinton affair. And most men of a certain age would agree that a young woman who decides that she wants him can probably have him if she pursues him in a way that is designed to be kept private.
6
I was 20 when I saw that issue of The Times Magazine. As an aspiring writer, I was horribly envious of Joyce Maynard and remained so for years. (My own first book came out when I was the ripe old age of 27.) But I never understood why she received such opprobrium for her writing or her personal life. Her writing was always clear, always honestly felt, and to me, she has always been a person with integrity. She was a role model for me, and her books are still very much worth reading. I am glad to see this essay. I am still envious, and I am still a fan.
123
@Richard Grayson well said.
3
Young women falling for a Pygmalion have always existed and still exist. Recently a young lady having had a relationship with Philip Roth got raving reviews for her first autobiographical novel. I myself married my Pygmalion when I was twenty one. In his words I could one minute be a goddess and the next minute an idiot After a few years of this I moved on - he didn’t like that and made divorce very difficult. As sick as this relationship was I would never compare it with rape or sexual harassment. I rather asked myself what made me so vulnerable to falling for this kind of man.
53
@MALINA
Of course, that was not the true focus of this piece, though the author has every right to compare Salinger to a predator given the manner of his pursuit of young women.
While it's important to understand what makes us vulnerable, it's equally important to recognise that predators target vulnerabilities, are good at it, and are often revered and those who become involved with them condemned.
Sorry if I misinterpreted your comment as judgment if you did not intend it as such.
11
@MALINA And what was it about you or the author of the NY piece that needs to take down a woman who writes a memoir about her particular suffering? What is gained by vilifying a woman trying to make sense of her life? Perhaps you also suffered and did not write a book, but we all heal in different ways. I might argue that most young naive people, when approached by a person they know to be super famous and smart, would try to bask in that glow. That's why figures of authority like teachers don't get to have affairs with students without it being a problem. Would you ever let a young person leave a scholarship at a university to be with you -- especially if you knew it was a fling? That simple callousness on his part, on the part of a world-famous writer of stories I have loved, would be one I would grapple with my whole life if I were Maynard. Sure she made a mistake, young people do. But to watch a young person do it, knowing another and another will follow? That feeling of being so chepaly discarded would be the kind of feeling you might write about a lifetime.
26
@MALINA
It’s clear that you (and Joyce) were vulnerable because you were young. If an older woman had in any way encouraged me at the age of eighteen, I would have gladly said yes in eight different languages!
What an opportunist she is. Even after all these years, she doesn't miss a chance!
8
Bravo Joyce Maynard. I grieve for the ugly reception you had. Where was sisterhood? Not to speak of intelligence. Thank you for this piece.
11
Joyce, I read your book and thought it was wonderful writing. I never doubted the truth of your experience. Thank you for your honesty and authenticity. I’m sorry that so many have been unkind to you but not everyone agrees with those folks. You are brave and strong and I appreciate and honor you.
11
J. D. Salinger was, among other things, a predator and abuser. Joyce Maynard has bravely brought this truth to light. I am grateful and apologize to her for my initial response to her revelations (anger towards her). Those who still criticize her for 'cashing in' are as cruel as they are clueless. She had every right to write about her experiences and to sell those letters, and I hope it helped her emotionally as well as practically. Too bad, though, that so many here dismiss Salinger's works--where, unlike in his life, he was able to do great things and, I would say, overcome his demons--on the basis of his failures as a person. I give him credit for accomplishing what he did and think that his story is the sad one of someone not well at all, pretending he was OK, superior even, and disintegrating rather than seeking the help he needed.
8
J.D. Salinger may have been a creep and abusive, but Maynard has been milking the relationship for many years. Nobody would care about what she writers about otherwise. She needs to find something else to write about or go into a different line of work.
7
@Susan Nunes She has found something else to write about—quite a bit, in fact, including the novel To Die For, the basis of the 1995 Gus Van Sant film.
7
when you are 18,you don't run off to live
with a 53 year old man you have never met,
in spite of his being perhaps the most over
written about and overrated American
writer bar no one.Salinger appears to have
been a clever,perpetual adolescent with a
small modicum of talent who wrote a single
vaguely amusing book and lived off a carefully
cultivated image as a recluse. whether one
admires Ms.Maynard's work or not ,it is very
difficult to feel any sympathy for her.
5
He lived his fantasy and she lived hers, in a culturally diverse world. Reality eventually replaced fantasy. Neither should be condemned nor should either be ashamed. Artists are often risk takers and romantics. Upon encountering a fork in the road, they take it.
25
@BeaconpsHis fantasy? He was 53, and she was 18. He was a predator, and this is a shocking story, not least for the horrifying reception Ms. Maynard received from other writers and the world at large. She was barely more than a child, for God's sake. This was just a hair short of child abuse.
21
@Beaconps She was 18 and he was in his 50s. That’s not “risk taking” and creative rule-breaking on his part. That’s finding someone more vulnerable and naive than you and taking advantage of their naïveté to feed your own ego and need to be worshipped. And SHE has been paying the price, for living this experience and then having the courage to tell her own story about it. It seems the risks were all hers.
19
@Beaconps - Salinger was WRONG. He was a predator, and she was a child.
11
I’m with Dowd on this one
3
Of course you were his prey. Thank you for your honesty. Stay true.
11
I think that Salinger was a great writer and a questionable man, like almost every man in the world. Maybe he was more than questionable regarding his love affairs with young girls. Let's say he used his power and his legend to take from them what he wanted. But Maynard at that time was 18, and she decided by herself to quit university and go to live with Salinger. Her case is not comparable to Weinstein's where we have a man who assaulted women and brutally said "sex with me or you won't work".
It is true that 18 is still the age of unexperience, but we learn and shape as individuals making mistakes. The very important mistake in Maynard's life was to fall in love with an older man who was a celebrity and was convinced by part of the world to be someone like Jesus and have written a sort of new testament. Maynard could learn something by herself without writing her book. She didnt' need to write it to feel mature and forgive Salinger.
2
Just read Joyce ‘s essay and the comments selected for NYT Picks. Thought they were truly wonderful. They reflect both insight and compassion. How much we have matured and learned about human behavior since the 1970s!
5
I remember reading in 1972 Maynard's essay published in the Times, thinking what a remarkable, talented young woman she was. She was also a barely legal, naive teenager, seduced & lied to by a man who was, in my opinion, one step removed from a pedophile.
The criticism this woman endured from the press goes beyond the pale. Her story reminds me of the Anita Hill testimony scarcely 19 years later, & how she, too, was disrespected & disregarded by a group of egotistical, misogynistic men who couldn't accept that a woman's testimony could be the truth, which, in fact, it was.
Until women can take leadership control in government & the media, this demeaning of women will continue. Shame on you, NY Times. You owe Joyce Maynard a huge apology, as well as to the constellation of other women you have belittled & demeaned in the past.
10
Joyce Maynard...I recently looked for you book on Audible.com...I was hoping it was available...I read your book when it came out and I am looking foreword to reading it again...bwr
2
Love you, Joyce! I've always had your back. Thanks for this.
8
I read 'At Home in the World' when it was first published. I was also living in New Hampshire at the time, so Joyce Maynard's work and writing life were familiar to me. This story was an important and valid one for her to tell then. Of course, it's more than relevant now. Joyce: I want to convey my admiration for your clarity of purpose and your courage. I wish I had done so years ago.
11
Ms. Maynard fails to address the central fault in her revelations at that time: the appearance of using the fame earned by a great writer with whom she had a sexual relationship to sell her own memoir, and then attacking the very agency of her own profit. Selling the letters from Salinger was an even greater offense, which, again, she fails to acknowledge. And once again we have a "victim" who wants to be celebrated for her courage and integrity but didn't have the wherewithal to walk out of a relationship she now tells us was exploitative. "The Catcher in the Rye" meant something-- a lot-- to a generation. I don't think your grievance justifies the attack on his reputation. Is that what we all should remember Salinger for now? That he was mean to you?
4
But wasn't he using her? I always knew Holden Caulfield was a creep.
2
I'm confused why this has to be an either/or story--why Joyce Maynard or J. D. Salinger has to inhabit the role of predator or prey only in this story, and why they cannot share both those roles.
While she paints a picture of him as the dirty old man manipulating the eighteen-year-old student, it's also true she was legally an adult when she moved in with him, and that she later benefited financially from his letters to her when she sold them and also from her story of their relationship when she sold that. It seems to me they both came to the relationship with many expectations, and ultimately both got something out of it that the other later regretted.
This is not in any way a story of harassment, despite the #MeToo resonances she claims it possesses.
11
Why do I think that Ms Maynard was an eager 18 year old girl who had her young heart broken by Mr Salinger and still, on some deep level, pines for him. His age was not what broke her heart and changed her life.
3
Of course throughout his adult life Salinger was a predator of very young women, although he likely did not see it that way. Mind you he wasn't your typical hound on the prey, he was for the most part trying to recapture his pre-WWII failed relationship with the young Oona O'Neil, who while he was away at war, met and married Charlie Chaplin. Salinger who suffered from PTSD after experiencing first hand the horrors of combat and later witnessing first hand the victims of the Jewish concentration camps, spend the rest of his life trying to heal himself through reading, writing, Zen Buddist meditation, and trying to return to his innocence of youth by reliving his love affair with Oona with other young women. But it always failed because it was an unrealistic goal. Joyce Maynard and numerous other girls where his naive and unwitting victims.
15
Joyce Maynard understandably wonders if in this #MeToo moment she might have her extremely youthful relationship with J.D. Salinger for which she was pilloried reassessed.
Edith Wharton understood the finest points of social judgment and condemnation. She covered this 100 years ago in her masterful short story, "Autres Temps." Mrs. Lidcote, an American women lives in Europe, a pariah due to her divorce twenty years ago. She is headed back to New York for the quick divorce and remarriage of her daughter. Seeing how her divorced daughter has escaped social ostracism, and is being accepted at all levels of society, Mrs. Lidcote wonders if under the new social code she too might be permitted acceptance and reentry into New York society at last. But the story shows, the outcast doesn't get reconsidered. Mrs. Lidcote learns, "My case had been passed on and classified; I'm the woman who has been cut for nearly 20 years. The older people have half-forgotten why, and the younger ones have never really known: it's simply become a tradition to cut me. And traditions that have lost their meaning are the hardest to destroy."
166
@jade ann She does this even more successfully and subtly in her Pulitzer masterpiece novel, "The Age of Innocence," about how society and her own extended family unite to shun a woman who marries and leaves a brutal European aristocrat.
5
@jade ann
Henry James was also a sharp observer of social judgment. In his "Daisy Miller" the narrator struggles to understand what sort of girl she is before concluding to his own shame that she was "a young woman for whom it was no longer necessary to have any respect." Well worth revisiting in this "Me Too" era as was Ms. Maynard's story.
2
Oh, dear Joyce, my fellow "over sharer.." How fortunate was I, to come to your most recent memoir, unencombered by any possible misconceptions. How ironic, that it was this very newspaper that led me to that book, through your stunning Modern Love essay. There is only one predator here; any consciously aware person knows that. I feel the pain of your past , acknowledge the ordeal, and remain in high admiration of your present. To commentators: if you haven't read "The Best of Us," please do, it's a gem. The entwining of love and loss is stunning. As always, Ms. Maynard has made art from tough stuff. I now go back to calling "you" Joyce; I imagine all the readers you touch, feel a personal connection. Good to know you'll never stop sharing.
6
No writer/novel writer gets a pass when it comes to taking advantage of a very young woman. Our society has hopefully changed now. If you haven't already read it, read Ms. Maynard's At Home in the World. It is excellent.
6
When I clicked on the link in the first paragraph, I was astonished to find Maureen Dowd's byline on what now seems like a spectacularly wrongheaded and even vicious piece. I'd be curious to hear what she thinks about it now.
8
Why hasn't The Times included a link to the original article that started it all?
6
There is no excuse for such lecherous, exploitative, and destructive behavior on the part of an overrated writer, who, as others note, seduced and continues to seduce generations of early adolescents. (Curiously my daughter, at age 13, loved the book, and my son, at 15, thought it was"stupid."). I just read Ms Maynard's Wikipedia entry, however, which indicates that she has caused what is likely to be at least equal damage to two vulnerable human beings to get her own needs met. This doesn't make her less human or less of a victim of Salinger, but it suggests poor, selfish, and impulsive judgement regarding her own choices at an age comparable to Salinger's at the time she dropped out of Yale.
1
When the first article appeared in the NYTimes way back in 1972 I wrote a letter to the paper regarding Joyce Maynard's self indulgence. Apparently, she hasn't changed and, over th years, has continued to try to profit from her relatively brief association with him. Others have done the same re their brief relationships with such individuals as Jack Kerouac and Ernest Hemingway. It seems a little more than disingenuous to try to continue to milk this so many years later under the new guise of the Me Too movement. Why did anyone care what Joyce Maynard had to say in '72? Why do they care still? She wasn't the voice of her generation, not by a long shot. I didn't care then and I certainly don't now. Attention to her ramblings is a waste of newsprint.
6
Never tell the truth unless you are ready for a lifetime of abuse. Everyone writes about justice and the need for men and women to be decent, but its all posturing. The brightest and most compassionate of men (and women) see their 20's as the golden age and spend the rest of their lives trying to return. A fifty year old uses fame and glory to seduce a 19 year old and get her into a dark room where he can pretend to be 20 once again. Everyone has excuses and everyone will apologize afterwards. Lust is indifferent to everything but satisfaction. Mr. Salinger knew what lit him up and he rationalized it, most of us would do the same if possible. In the end every young girl should be told in explicit terms that mean are not evil but itchy and seek young women to fill their fantasy. Beware and understand your own itch. Ms. Maynard need not punish herself. As for the critics who walked out on her, it is their shame not hers.
2
When an older, powerful man targets a young, barely of age woman, it is never from a sense of generosity or care for the other.
It is so easy to dismiss the Ms. Maynard, the object of an unequal relationship as someone who only wanted to cash in on her attachment to Salinger because she actually published the truth about her relationship with Salinger. Her story is an eerie repeat of his relationship with his first wife, who at his request dropped out of Radcliffe before graduation. No predator wants his secret desires made public, least of all the author of a coming of age novel revered by so many men. That Salinger was a predator can no longer be doubted when you find more than one post-pubescent 18 year old falling for his line.
Shame on those writers who turned their backs on her, many of whom probably wrote thinly veiled "tell alls" about the women they had sexual relationships with.
And, shame on you for suggesting that she was not smart enough, or mature enough, to exploit her own exploitation in a more acceptable manner, and profit on it. I doubt Salinger would have targeted a woman with the maturity and sophistication to so do.
Ms. Maynard was a brilliant newcomer who still retained the idealism and naïveté of her youth: Perfect fodder for a 50 year old writer who had outgrown his literary persona, and couldn’t figure out a second act.
9
I never forgot the issue of the NYT's Magazine with Joyce's picture on the cover. I was about the same age as Joyce, and her story deeply effected me. She had become a writer, admired by a great writer...that was really what I focused on.
She'd won some kind of sweepstakes; she had been taken seriously and was now enjoying a life as an equal (albeit by a mentor.)
She was writing and being read by a great published author.
Was he too old for her? Of course. But then, he took her seriously, or so I thought.
Never did I impugn her character. But I should, and did impugn his. He's the one who should have known better.
10
You never have a complete heart until your heart is completely broken (quote from steve perry of Journey - in another NYT article today). It sounds like Joyce made a typically foolish choice when just a young and impressionable youth at the urging of a man skilled at fishing for the innocent. I don't believe that you have to have such a terrible relationship open the doors to your soul, those doors can also be opened by the true love of a husband, a good coach/mentor or those of your family and even by meeting Jesus personally. But I am glad she shared the "first-person" narrative for the rest of us. I am a father of 4 daughters and would not like anyone like Salinger to get close to them. The power of wealth and fame is a flame that burns most who soar to closely.
2
@John
No, we shouldn't outlaw sex between 18 and 53 year olds. But we shouldn't defend it, admire it, or rationalize it. The problem wasn't the difference in their ages, it was the difference in their EXPERIENCE. She was barely out of high school and knew nothing about the way a relationship should work. He was a seasoned seducer who took advantage of her psychological innocence and kicked her to the curb when he got bored. If she was 35 and he was 70, I'd say more power to him. As it was, I'd say Joyce Maynard was treated abominably-both by Salinger and his fawning admirers.
10
@L. Rose "Is anyone ... taking young women aside to teach them to recognize the behaviors of predatory older men who abuse their power?"
My mother handled discussing "the facts of life"with me badly. Her POV re sexual relations was "that's all men are interested in". I thought she was crazy. Now, after a lifetime of dating, variously characterized relationships, and reading all the post-Weinstein stories, mom seems to have been mostly right, since various forms and degrees of pressure and coercion seemed to be present nearly always, in my interactions with men. What else can one make of the "trophy wife" phenomenon, as an example.
But yes, I'd say when a woman is 18 and the guy's 20+ years her senior, she's unquestionably being played, and expecting a lot more than she'll ever get. I envy any woman looking for deep emotional communion and philosophical sympatico in a relationship, and actually finds it. Our chances are probably in the single digits.
3
@Mary Ann According to Darwin and all subsequent evolutionary biologists, propagation of the species all that every living organism is interested in.
2
I can’t help but notice that both this article and the comments apologizing to Ms. Maynard are all happening safely after Mr. Salinger has been dead for almost 9 years. I’m sure it all would have meant a lot more to her if this had happened when the deified author had been both alive and cognizant. But then we had to wait this long for the #metoo movement as well. I guess something is better than nothing?
5
I remember your original article in the Times. I was 17.
Brave you. Then, later, and now.
176
@Susan
I remember it, too. I was a few years older than you and already teaching English at a New Jersey college — where I assigned that essay in a freshman writing course. I was so impressed that you had pulled this off and gotten yourself published so young. I have felt for you for years and years, Joyce, and have honestly been thinking of you this past year. You ARE brave. I am so glad you have written this piece now.
7
I was a junior at Princeton when Ms. Maynard's NYT piece was first published. It seemed strange to me then (and still does); what could any 18 year old have to say that merits such a platform? Well, Malala; but random unknowns, no matter how brilliantly they wrote? I didn't know the circumstances of how she came to be with Mr. Salinger, and probably imagined that she had enticed him, rather than the other way around. (Unfortunately, that was my young man's bigotry.) Now that I'm in my middle 60's, it's obvious that it must have been his doing; many more old men want the physical affection of young women than the reverse.
I think Ms. Maynard is a victim. I am sorry that she has been so badly treated and thought of for all these decades, and hope that fate (and those who interact with her) will treat her more generously now and in the years to come. In any case, I owe her an apology for what my younger self thought.
35
You had a YALE scholarship and you gave it up to have a love affair with an older, infamous American author who you worshiped as an enlightened being...my guess is no matter how your parents, or family and friends may have pleaded with you not to make such a foolish move, you would not have listened, just as your own daughter and the millions of daughter out there never listen.
What many would have given back in the 1970s for a scholarship to Yale!? Indeed still would give today for same!
We women are victims of our own tragedies played out by our own sexual egos.
We are filled with fantasies of romantic love as our only salvation to personhood and fulfillment.
The feminist movement has fought tooth and nail to change the way women are socialized and sometimes we succeed but often we fail.
Perhaps biology has more power over us than we care to admit.
As a woman and feminist I can only shake my head at the choices I see intelligent women of all ages make for a man’s sexual attention...full disclosure, in the past, myself included, but once was enough for me and never again.
We are agents of our own dramas and pain. Make no mistake about it this was your chosen journey. Let’s change the victim narrative ladies it’s getting old.
39
@Issy
We will only stop the "victim" narratives when our so-called feminist allies, among others, stop belittling the reality of women's experiences with the absurd idea that a woman like Maynard was an agent of her own pain. Shame on you! The truth is that Salinger exploited her naïveté, youth and even perhaps her credulity but it's so easy to judge all that - and her - from the perspective of the world we live in now compared to the world as it was then.
Based on many of the comments here defending Salinger and snidely condemning Maynard as an opportunist (she wrote a book about it! She sold his letters! Oh my! What - she should have held on to them for - their sentimental value?) I suspect that few people actually remember or have any idea of what the world was like when this happened to Maynard.
And yes, make no mistake, it happened to her for all your talk about her agency. I doubt at the time the concept of 18 yr old girls having significant agency with 53 yr old superstar lovers was something to which she had given much thought - had you at that age over 4 decades ago?!
What continues to be old is the antideluvian refusal (and many men to take responsibility for) to grasp is that "consent" can be understood as someth very different for an 18 yr old than for a 25 or 30 yr old - let alone with decades of hindsight.
Joyce Maynard, you are a courageous and admirable woman! What's old is blaming the "prey" and it needs to stop!
2
@Issy Curious that you place no blame on the creepy old men.
2
@Issy
Actually, her parents encouraged her in the thing. You might read her book before you mouth off.
We are agents in our own loud opinions.
4
If Ms. Maynard had been a few years younger then it would have been simple to see Salinger's behavior for what it was; predation. Somehow, magically, once a person reaches the technical age of consent our culture seems to become oblivious to 20, 30, 40 year age differences. Great artists and scientists and public figures may also be sexual predators or abusive partners. It's more than past time for our society to stop blaming those they target for telling their truths. So we ruin your idealized image of the "great person" (as a lesbian I know too well that the predator may also come in a female form), so what? Perhaps we can disrupt the notion that being talented excuses a person from treating others with respect. It does not. It should not.
26
The romantic 18 yr old writer in 1972 is on a different playing field than the 53 yr old reclusive writer. A romantic 18 yr old in 2018 is on a different planet altogether. Let us maintain perspective and respect as past experiences are coming to light. Aging is a healthy way to remember and be able to move forward.
8
@Debby E "Maintain perspective and respect" seems like a funny way of talking about how horribly Maynard was treated, first by Salinger and then by the literary world. She deserved better. Let's start showing respect and not maintain the shameful treatment of her in the past.
4
I am sorry. Older powerful men have been preying on admiring younger women as long as both have existed. Anyone who's been either should be able to see this situation for what it was and is.
We need to stop excusing men for bad behavior because we want to like them.
24
We don't like it when our heroes are toppled, or at least exposed as flawed or cruel. Any girl or woman who has been hurt by a high school athlete, politician, or artist knows this all too well.
I read "Catcher" in 8th grade and loved it, of course. I reread it three years ago and was stunned by how creepy I found Holden Yes, he was suffering from depression following his brother's death, and he craved authenticity in his life - something that means everything to teenagers. But there is also an entitlement and narcissism informing his actions where he believes that he is the only victim. That sounds very much like the author.
20
@Amy Even when I read it as a teenager, I pegged Holden Caulfield as nasty, self-entitled preppy. The underrated film Igby goes Down has a similar main character and plot, but he's far more sympathetic.
1
Brilliant, thought-provoking and much-needed. THANK YOU, Joyce Maynard.
21
Beautiful essay. Age matters. At 13, my junior high science teacher called me to the front of the room, along with another girl who, no coincidence, looked somewhat like me. He extolled our virtues as evolving young women, noting our signs of maturation. A compliment? Heck no-- pure predatory shame. I am sure the teacher knew that neither of us would share this with the administration nor our parents. Thus his action was also a raw abuse of power. By age 18 I was dating and sexually active--with BOYS, of my age and choice. Had a man like Salinger wooed and lured me into his life, I would define that as just as creepy and predatory as the actions of my 8th grade science teacher. However, for those who say that Monica Lewinsky was prey, I disagree. By age 22 a female is no longer a girl, she is a woman, able to chart her own course. Bill showed bad judgement and taste in having this affair, but the relationship is in no way is similar to what Joyce describes in this essay. I will admit that power is seductive, but by age 22 a woman owns her choice in the way an 18 year old does not.
11
@karen Yes, and I'm sure him being the President of the United States of America didn't contribute at all to skewed power dynamics.
3
Bless Joyce Maynard, a wonderful woman and an excellent writer. What a shame that the part of literary community who disrespects her has not been able to move ahead from an obvious bias.
14
I don't understand why so many commentators think she is a hero after she sold his private letters.
Salinger was a creep to her, okay, but her essay is complaining about being known for this while simultaneously deliberately making herself even more well known for this. She's still holding a grudge over that Yale scholarship -- like if enough people say, "poor you, you have no responsibility for walking away from your Ivy League education opportunity," that's going to change things.
She made a bad choice, and then she found a way to cash in. When is she going to stop complaining about J.D. Salinger already?
16
@Ann
Maybe when Monica Lewinsky stops storming off the stage when an interviewer asks her about Bill Clinton. (Whom she preyed upon after announcing her predatory intentions to others.)
Both Joyce and Monica got what they wanted/deserved.
5
You go woman, neither predator nor prey. You have nothing to apologize for or to be ashamed of. As a youth you made the right decision for YOU and it ended badly. But you grew, learned and moved on. Your story has gone around and come around and is totally relevant today. This story needs to be re-told to a new generation. (Any marketing geniuses out there see an opportunity)? Do not pay attention to group-think criticism. Be strong. Public interest in J.D.'s missing work is natural and OK. It's not your problem. Thanks for sharing your youthful adventure.
12
I have read a bit about people who engage in this kind of behavior and they are, apparently, still like a teenager inside. I had one powerful and admired man, Ed Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, tell me this after he grabbed me for an unexpected kiss on his couch at age 82. And maybe I'll save the rest of that story for a future memoir! Anyway, Salinger was great at getting into our heads when we were young--I was 13 when I read all of his books, as were my friends--and this is why we deified him. We were at an impressionable age prone to that kind of worship. Having an emotional age of 16 or whatever probably had something to do with that success. Everyone wondered what he was doing those last years of his life, and why he shut himself away. The inner self came out in 3-D.
7
Women's voices are already marginalized enough. Maureen Dowd is still one of the only three female NYTimes permanent opinion writers, out of 14. That's an 80/20 ratio in terms of gender.
That's why it's so enraging to go back and read that piece by her from 1999. I was 25 when that was published. At the time I was trying to figure out how to live the world. And that article would have been presented to me as something worthy of my time as a reader? It's just so galling. And how much of this toxic indoctrination were the women of my generation exposed to? How much did we digest? How much of it came from our own mothers, aunts and female teachers!
However, we should consider too that the problem mightn't have been one writer's willingness to tear down others, but that maybe the toxicity is a product of all of our marginalization and thus, tokenization. Once people buy into the idea that opportunities are scarce, and that the abundance of voices & ideas are a threatening thing, one toes the line on the model on which we simply are left fighting for scraps.
17
The linked Dowd column is fairly terrifying to read now, but there was a whiff of protesting too much involved in it as well, as anyone who read Dowd during the Clinton years can attest: the heartbreak of a columnist with a crush on a president, played out in the pages of the Paper of Record, when the betrayal with Ms Lewinsky occurred.
One would think that Maynard’s relationship with that weirdo in New Hampshire would have elicited more sympathy, not less, from the critic.
21
Salinger's work has not held up.
Some of it was worthless from the start. Franny and Zooey, e.g.
His personal life was creepy. Duh. Predator? Duh.
This month is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Little Women. Still being read, though rarely taught. Will anyone be reading Salinger in 100 years?
20
@Pecan "Little Woman" remains a standard text in most high school literature classes.
2
@HKGuy
No, unfortunately, you are incorrect. For facts about this matter, see the 2018 book by the Little Women scholar, Anne Boyd Rioux: Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters.
https://www.amazon.com/Meg-Jo-Beth-Amy-Matters-ebook/dp/B076MDMV34/ref=s...
See, especially, Chapter 7, "A Private Book for Girls," in which Professor Rioux gives details of surveys conducted by the National Education Association et al. to determine if Little Women is still taught.
(It's not.)
"A 2010 survey of four hundred English teachers indicated that NONE were teaching anything by Alcott." (p. 162)
"According to the 2012 "That Kids Are Reading" report, which includes a focus on the Common Core exemplar texts, only 0.08 percent of the 7.6 million American students surveyed had read Little Women the previous school year."
Why is it not taught? Because boys wouldn't like it. It's fallen to "optional summer reading lists and homeschooling text lists."
"The only two books about girls that routinely appear on middle- and high school reading lists are The Diary of a Young Girl by Ann Frank and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee." (p. 165.)
Much more in Chapter 7 about why teachers "must choose common reading that will appeal to boys."
1
i hope rumors of more salinger manuscripts yet to be revealed are totally untrue. "Catcher in The Rye" is unreadable for me at this point in life. the only thing i have left from reading all his works is, "Sleep tight, ya morons!"
he sounds pretty creepy.
7
The enduring mystery of the "great" (enlightened) male writer/psychopath: so many of these. Has anyone untangled this? Please advise, because frankly I just don't get it.
6
I never cared much for Joyce Maynard. All I saw was the smirking self-importance, the need for attention. Then I read At Home in the World. Wow. Now I take back everything I ever said about her. #MeToo aside, she has a great story to tell and she tells it brilliantly: her mother's complicity, the comedy/tragedy of the "lovers'" sex life, the cruel dismissal on the beach in Daytona (where, take it from a Floridian, no one of any taste and discernment has ever gone for a vacation.) How ironic that the creator of Holden Caulfield, who so hated "phonies," turned out to be the biggest phony of them all.
36
In an age of revenge porn, this is news? In an age where middle schoolers routinely have sex?
Let's just say that Maynard sold letters--historical relics by now.
As for relative geezers seducing "innocent" young women, hey, I was 18 once during what can be described as a nouveau Stone Age and even then had an answer for those types: "I'm not up for adoption."
Yale or no Yale, Maynard was not as bright as she thought. In this she's not alone either. Lay it to rest, kid.
11
You certainly weren't a stalker; however, there's no good reason why, at the age of eighteen, you shouldn't have and couldn't have just avoided him in the first place or left him instead of hanging around for several months. You overplay your youthful innocence and helplessness.
9
@Cary Cotterman You know 18 year old brains are literally not developed enough to understand long term consequences? There's nothing about being 18 that makes you more adult than a 17 year old. Try a little empathy, it'll do you good.
5
Salinger truly comes across as a Dracula like character. Selecting his victims, suckling life from them, then simply discarding them. He seems a soulless hollow character.
11
@dennis oleary
I agree. But just to remind you that he had been in the war. That changed people.
3
Let's hope Dowd grows up one day and stops her nasty little girl persona
9
This deification of JD Salinger has always confused me, like Hemingway or Mailer or F Scott or other equally talented writers. Having a facility with the English language should not be a get out of jail free card. Most of these people had problems in their lives, alcoholism, infidelities, egotism, drug addiction and madness but overcoming these afflictions to write a series of great works doesn't mean you know everything about life, morality, sex, war, man's inhumanity to man or, in this case woman. It just means you know a lot of words. I think The Great Gatsby is one of the most poetically brilliant pieces of writing I've ever read but God didn't write it, a troubled alcoholic who would later die a failure wrote it. It just goes to show that humans are capable of great art, that doesn't mean they are great humans.
352
A failure? He wrote “one of the most poetically brilliant pieces of writing (you’ve) ever read,” a book that’s moved generations of readers. I realize he struggled with alcoholism and was less successful in later life, and he may have felt like a failure in later life, but to say he “died a failure” seems harsh.
8
@Rick Gage
I remember reading somewhere that when Caitlin Thomas, Dylan Thomas's wife, was asked about the beautiful poems he wrote to her, she replied something along the lines of - what - he can write these to a lamp post! Writing is his JOB! That is what he does for a living. They don't mean a thing about our relationship. Dylan, evidently, was not a great husband...But he was a great poet and writer...
5
Like many women, I too was manipulated by older men (more than one) as a young woman. Most recently, in my 30s, a 70 year old well known philosopher befriended me at a conference claiming his vast interest in my dissertation work and his desire to mentor me. After a few phone calls spent listening to him talk on and on about himself as he sought information and an in person meeting it became all too clear that he was only minimally interested in my work. Such a common story it seems. Thank you for sharing yours yet again. Perhaps the way it is perceived over time will stand as a good marker for how far our culture has progressed.
277
@Jamie-Yours, mine, the author, and other posters' stories reinforces why the book, "Sex in the Forbidden Zone" by Dr. Peter Rutter should be required reading and his advice used to inform ethical codes and rules of behavior wherever men hold more power and sit in authority over women.
3
I’ve followed Joyce Maynard’s life since her photo on the cover of the New York Times Magazine all those years ago. We are the exact same age. I also had a relationship before I was 20 with a married man, a teaching assistant, whom my mother said should have known better. Of course, like Joyce, I wanted to run my life on my own terms.
I got hurt, too, but my relationship was out of the spotlight and not with a bold face name. I licked my wounds and suffered mightily when he returned to his wife, and even dropped out of college for a semester. Fortunately, I was able to rebound, finish school, follow my career, get married and have children. A full life. No regrets.
My view of Joyce was never positive. Until this latest piece. I can’t figure out exactly why I, and others, were so harsh in our judgement, but I now see I was mistaken. She is a strong, strong woman who has every right to feel the way she does. She was young and naive. He was the predator, clearly.
Bravo, Joyce, for continuing to stand up to the critics...and the rest of us on the sidelines.
482
@Commentary
I fell under the spell of a predatory boss....knowing intellectually at the time that it was wrong but at the same under the spell of the "prince charming" fantasy. When little girls are no longer fed the "and the prince married the scullery maid and they lived happily ever after" story, at least without caveats, young women will be unconsciously primed not to follow their more rational instincts.
16
@Commentary
Bravo to you for reconsidering your thoughts on the matter.
10
I confess that I allowed the NY Times smearing of Ms. Maynard after her memoir was published to form my opinion of her for many years. Then, about 10 years ago, I actually took the time to read her book. I was deeply ashamed of myself. It is the kind of mistake I will never make again.
The idea that the responsibility for this disgraceful episode lies with an 18-year-old sheltered and naive girl, and not with a man nearly old enough to be her grandfather is stunning. The opprobrium heaped on her in order to justify the veneration heaped on him - I don't know how she has lived with this topsy-turvy state of affairs all her life. I admire her strength. She is owed an abject apology by so many. I will start the ball rolling by offering her mine.
608
@mahajoma
If memory serves, she said she did it, to pay for the college expenses of her children. And obviously, J.D.S. wasn't going to help. So, she went to the marketplace and maximized her intellectual property assets.
Sounds like a plan to me. MAGA, y'all?
2
@Bang Ding Ow
Agree. I'm not a fan of Joyce's, but selling Salinger's letters was a good move.
On Antiques Roadshow when they show how the value of something they appraised on an earlier show has gone up or (usually) down, I wonder how many people wish they had sold while the iron was hot.
I doubt Salinger's letters have held up. Eeuuww.
2
@mahajoma
How about the editorial board of the Times write an apology to Joyce?
20
Two thoughts: one -- it seems to me that it is hard to fault people for asking you about your relationship with Salinger if you keep writing about it.
Secondly, your description of yourself as a naive victim of a powerful man is demeaning. Eighteen-year-old women have agency and are capable of making their own decisions. You chose to enter into the relationship. Was Salinger a pig? Sounds like it, but that doesn't make anyone in this story a predator or prey.
18
@Liz If you think an 18-year-old has the sophistication of a 40 or 50 or 70-year-old man, I'd like to meet some of the 18-year-olds you've been spending time with. Sophistication comes with experience. 18-year-olds can be many things - smart, astute, sharp, clever - but sophisticated isn't one of them. That comes with time.
10
Ms. Maynard, I think Maureen Dowd saw you the same way JD Salinger did, as something to be used and then discarded.
Also, on another point and to your point of predator or prey, I was a freshman in high school in 1972 not more than 15 miles from where your were a freshman at Yale at the exact same time. One of my first reading assignments was Salinger's short story, "To Esme, With Love and Squalor", which to me at the time felt a like an army soldier (Salinger) attempting to seduce a preteen girl. As beautiful in many ways that short story was and remains today, I still feel that story comes from a far, far darker and other place in Salinger's own psyche than what was presented in that story. Was Salinger issuing an open love letter to all the would be Esmes in his life to come? Were you one of his Esmes?
24
Maybe because as Joyce Maynard makes abundantly clear some of her harshest tormentors were females.
11
Joyce, I have followed your career since you first appeared in NYT Magazine. Salinger was horrible to you and deserves any scorn you want to heap on him. But please stop referring to him as a "great man". He was a great writer, not a great man.
33
@Chuck Connell
He was not a great writer, either. When was the last time you bought/read one of his books? Why are his books not in the Library of America? Is Salinger one of the top fifty American writers? Top 100?
11
Aw, come on, some of his writing is very good - especially the short stories.
3
@Julie Zuckman’s
There was a time when I would have agreed with you about SOME of the short stories.
Do you think the New Yorker would publish his stories today?
What about any of the other magazines that publish short stories? (Are there any?)
I always thought JD Salinger was a creep.
12
Brava, Joyce Maynard, for continuing to speak up. You are more truthful in your work than Salinger ever was or ever could be. And in my book, truth = beauty = art. Ignoring the atrocious aspect of the difference in age and power in the relationship, the entire basis of their meeting was her cover article in the NYTM about her life. Only an arrogant narcissist wouldn't take the next logical step and understand that she was a writer who writes about her life, ergo, she most probably will write about their experience. Duh. If he didn't want to be written about, he shouldn't have gotten involved with a writer. I have no sympathy for him at all. Predator and idiot.
19
I too am 64. It's painful to think how ignorant I was at 18, and now at times it's painful to listen to ignorant 18 year olds. Of course, some 18 year olds are amazing, so bright. An old man gets to have sex with a young woman, using his star status to attract her, since his old body would not be attractive. That's the plot, and then there's each one of us in our uniqueness.
12
"It is always a woman who will be accused of this."
AS a writer - as a person, Ms Maynard - as with the rest of us- has the right to own and tell her story, her way. Men simply exercise this right; women are made to justify it, or suffer the consequences. The no longer have to write under male names, but they still suffer attacks ( maybe even more in the age of unsocial media).
A lot has to do with justifying our sexual existence; in this case it also had to do with exposing a legend as being entirely too common in his use and abuse of trust. His fans were apostles, not critics; they resented the way their idealized image was stained.
Then there's the fact that when the NYTimes published that essay, "An 18-year-old Looks Back at Life," in 1972 it really pricked jealousy in a host of people in the business - who were happy for the chance to put down the prodigy.
38
I can tell you that in my HS circle, we were consumed with jealousy over Maynard’s landing a cover NYT story, and baffled as well. Why her? We talked about it a lot.
3
This essay makes me want to read Maynard's work.
Thank you!
11
It's astounding that anyone would call Ms. Maynard a predator and a stalker. Salinger successfully lived the very private life that he wanted to live and had no trouble shooing people away. If Ms. Maynard as an 18 year old young and powerless woman was really "stalking" him, he would have had absolutely no difficulty getting rid of her. After all, he did eventually get rid of her. So when she was with him, it was because HE *wanted* HER to be with him. No pesky fan or relentless journalist has been able to get close to this man unless he wanted them to. HE called the shots. Not her.
35
Women have to fight all of their lives to earn respect. And yet it is given so easy to men. I'm glad things are changing for Joyce Maynard.
Love these phrase: "with words as devastating as they had once been captivating." It is exactly like it feels to be left by an older man who once seemed to had worshiped you.
17
I remember the Sunday when the magazine came out with Maynard's article. I was a freshman at Amherst and she was a sophomore at Yale. It struck me deeply then and still resonates today. I've always admired her from afar for her fearlessness, integrity, and engaging use of language. Above all else, she is verbally lithe.
17
My introduction to Joyce Maynard was in reading of one of her books called Baby Love. I greatly enjoyed the book and sought out other writings by her. At a later time I came to read about her involvement with Salinger. I found it an interesting sidenote, although it was not for me something that defined her. Even many tears ago it was clear to me that this was a situation of a young woman being taken advantage of by a powerful older man. I had empathy for her then and now. For me her standing as a writer has nothing to do with this sad, awful episode. I respect that she had the courage to write about it and share her story.
29
I keep thinking of the old saying: "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
Is anyone working upstream, taking young women aside to teach them to recognize the behaviors of predatory older men who abuse their power? To help them recognize and respond to lechery and grooming and inappropriate behavior. To provide them with some suggestions about how to find the right words to get out of awkward situation with confidence. To help them learn to project the professionalism that might keep some of the predatory behavior at bay? I hope so. As a woman of about Ms. Maynard's age, I recall being told about how to avoid being mugged, and how to prevent pregnancy, but nobody told me about this stuff.
I certainly applaud #ME TOO--but it seems like it is focused on telling the sad story later.
32
@L. Rose I agree. I think we should be teaching young people about what predatory behavior looks like in sex ed classes, dormitory floor meetings at colleges, meetings of grad students, orientation sessions for workplaces, info sessions for any institution where there are young people. etc.
6
When I was 19 Woody Allen tried to pick me up. At the time, I saw nothing to be gained from hanging around with a very famous man 25 years my senior...it seemed weird - why wasn’t he pursuing women his own age? What could we possibly have in common? I thought and felt these negatives with perfect clarity and had no trouble turning him down. But then, I had no ambitions to be an actress or filmmaker or even in the movie business...maybe Maynard needs to own her ambition and motivations a little more. Being with Salinger, if you wanted to be a novelist, probably sounded like a great idea at the time. It didn’t work out, but victim?
4
@Julie Zuckman’s humble bragging again.
Ms. Maynard, I have seen your story unfold from the start to the present and I suspect that you were condemned and shunned by other writers because they were angry for what you exposed, the dark side of a very well known writer who had won a place in the 20th century American canon. What if some woman did this to me! Heaven forfend!
As others have written, just because one is an accomplished artist, e.g. Salinger, there is no requirement included that the person be a decent human being. Being an artist is one of the most self centered things one can do. It is, in the best light, a beautiful scream: look at me! Look what I have done. Look at my soul and how meaningful it can be for you and the world. This is a distortion of what most people consider to be "normal" and, in some cases, the artist is rewarded handsomely for this aberrant behavior, paid handsomely, given awards and feted a thousand times.
100 to 150 years ago, it was not uncommon for older (old) men to take young wives, often brides who were arranged for them. No more. We now correctly see such arrangements as unfair, just plain wrong, no matter how they are arrived at. There is no reason to take Salinger's long ago relationship with Ms. Maynard in any other light. She had every right to tell the story.
Literary and academic life are filled with conspiracies, some dastardly. The goal is to protect and defend what is and try to ensure you get your piece of the pie, another probable motivation for the attacks.
19
People who don't want others to know what they are doing/have done - shouldn't do it in the first place. My very abusive ex would get furious when I would tell someone about his behavior. My response was that if he didn't want people to know, maybe he shouldn't have done it.
Talk about controlling! JD Salinger does not deserve privacy for stalking young women.
39
@Miriam Warner you got that right! I tell the truth of my experience married to a narcissistic military attorney... it infuriates him. It needs to be told in order to protect others. I refuse to hide it!
I applaud Joyce Maynard for “oversharing.” Don’t stop, Joyce. Have fun going back to Yale this fall!
10
Ms. Maynard's conclusion makes a good point -- that the truth should not be swept under a rug.
But, still, she didn't just tell the truth: She cashed in by selling letters sent to her by a private person who intended the letters to remain private. She cried victim all the way to the bank.
And, now, she's basically saying that Salinger spent his time recruiting other much-younger lovers, but she can't say it outright because she didn't actually see what he was writing and then mailing.
Look: we get it. Salinger was a creep for tempting you away from your Yale scholarship and dumping you. You've made your point. Can you leave his memory alone now?
8
@Ann
Include me out of your "we."
Why should Joyce "leave his memory alone?"
As to your explanation of what "she's basically saying?" She doesn't need your translation. Yuck.
10
Why should she protect his memory when what it needs is correcting? Why should she protect his intent when, after all, the letters were hers? "Protecting" his memory and "respecting his privacy" is just the sort of advice that allows predators to flourish. Because of her age, intelligence, talent and bravado Ms Maynard became a lightning rod for many of the social issues and excesses of the mid-1970's. Her association with an iconic writer put everything into gossip-y overdrive. She was an 18 year old who had to mature, embarrassingly, in public. That she continued to develop as a writer, parent, spouse and citizen speaks volumes. Which is much more than can be said about that great writer who turned out to be a very small man.
18
@Ann
If I recall correctly, others who had experiences with Salinger similar to Ms. Maynard's contacted her about them.
4
Thank you for telling your story,and by doing so ,telling many of our stories.I'm 2 years younger than you,but my college years,and my career,marked by predators as well.I was very lucky to meet,fall in love with and marry an honorable man,and have 2 sons,as honorable as he is.We all need to keep telling our stories,time for the narrative to be heard,so the younger generation,never has to deal with this.
16
I am impressed that Ms. Maynard has chosen to speak up about the issue again. It takes courage to put yourself on display. I say that he seems to have been the predator, given that he sent letters that instilled the hope of a real life, then pulled the carpet out.
12
@Anthony Courage? 45 years after the fact, while the target of Ms. Maynard's vitriol is long deceased and not able (and never was willing) to give his perspective on the relationship? Courage would have been walking out of a bad relationship before it got worse, and going back to Yale, and developing your own career as a writer without exploiting your connection with an established writer.
Since I read Joyce Maynard's memoir review in the NYT published in 1998 I have been on her side.
It pains me to hear how she was and has been continuously shamed when she was the victim of a predatory man many years older.
Sadly this is the traditional past when a woman, even a young girl, is considered the temptress, the predator, and the predatory male the blameless chump to her wiles. If one simply applies common sense it is pretty obvious that an 18-year-old is no match for a furtive and manipulative 53-year-old with seduction in mind.
When I was quite young I was approached numerous times by men who had no moral or ethical business to do so. A young person is so vulnerable to these predators, and they know it; they know just the right things to say and do to manipulate their prey into submission.
I admire her strength and determination to continue despite what happened to her. In her forthrightness to bring a traumatic story to light, she has made a personal sacrifice to model an example to every young woman and man what not to do under similar circumstances.
Thank you, Joyce Maynard, for your honesty, your strength and, your example. It is people like you who are the precursors to the changes we are seeing today.
290
@Osita
Old meme that can be helpful, if some old yahoo asks you to dump your Yale scholarship --
"In God we trust -- everyone else, it is cash upfront." (And note "we don't take checks.").
Dollars to donuts, that will shut down 98% of such bozos. Try it -- IMHO, you'll like it, just for the shock value. Peace!
3
I read recently a piece about Monica Lewinsky. The point made is that women involved in salacious relationships are rarely able to move on. The public continues to question them. Their careers are restricted. Their reputations forever maligned. Yet the men involved move on, hardly marked at all. Joyce Maynard had her "MeToo" moment. We should appreciate the courage it took for her to publicly speak, but she has long ago deserved the right not to have the matter continually put in front of her. Would we continually and forever ask a rape victim to once again tell us about her rapist?
80
@Janet "hardly marked at all"? It's all anyone has talked about for years and years. And you could hardly place the accusation of putting the matter "in front of her" to anyone but Ms. Maynard who chose to exploit her relationship to advance her career. And I have to object to "rapist". Really.
2
Is there a more overrated author in American letters than J D Salinger?
Try rereading his writing as a mature adult. Especially 'Catcher". Wow, what dreck. I didn't succumb to it as a teenager (Hesse being my adolescent weakness) but I feel for those who did.
What he did to this young woman was inexcusable. What the NYT and other writers chose to do makes them complicit in his exploitation and continuing abuse.
Thanks for this piece< Joyce. And thanks for your courage over this last half century.
123
I'm around the same age as Maynard and remember reading "An 18-year-old Looks Back at Life" in the NYT Magazine. I thought it was obnoxiously phony and narcissistic in the extreme. She made such a negative impression on me I've studiously ignored everything else she's written.
11
@Carson Drew
I'm not sure of the point of this comment. Does this mean you didn't read the essay you're responding to? I remember being annoyed by the initial NYT Magazine story as well (apparently JD didn't respond the same way), but that in no way negates the value of the current piece.
14
Thank you, brave woman for continuing on with the important writing and story telling work of your life despite being subjected to the sexual predations of an ignorant and weak man. You go!
32
53 year old man invites a 18 year old girl to live with him. What could possibly go wrong for both of them, especially for the girl?
60
Maynard's story is a not predator/prey story; Maynard played a romantic chance on a man who flattered her.
What is "meToo" about that I don't get.
What happened to Maynard continues to happens to a LOT of females; only now it's labeled with this warning: "beware of narcissistic males".
11
@SusanS
Hey, he was a famous writer and she was an aspiring writer. How is that do different from getting involved with a movie producer for an aspiring actress?
6
@SusanS
Did you miss the part about forced oral sex? Where I come from, we call that rape.
17
J.P. Salinger did nothing that can be considerred a me too moment.
He did not physically abuse her or did he stop her from leaving him.
In fact he was the one who ended the relationship.
He was being human and humans do things that are cruel to others as we sometimes can not see beyond our own needs and desires.
It seems from other comments he left her for another women.
Not nice but not terrible either.
People cheat and do not leave but do not tell their mate.
I ask you what is worse
A partner who cheats and lies to stay in the marriage or someone who leaves it to be with someone else.
I understand she is angry and feels betrayed.
I understand why she would want to hurt him because of that anger..
I don't like what she is doing now when he has no opportunity to defend himself.
.
10
@John she spoke out 20 years ago about something that happened more than 40 years ago. Salinger was alive when she wrote her book. She's not doing anything, "now".
12
@John
Hardly seems to this male - in his eighth decade who's been married for 55 years, has 2 daughters and has witnessed the necessary and long-missing evolution of attitudes towards women - that this piece by Joyce Maynard has to do with Salinger only incidentally. The enumeration of his actions (and dismissal of each as "into every life a little rain") seem quite irrelevant and certainly mean, if not vicious.
6
@John You have missed the entire point of the #metoo movement and power dynamic behind the experiences defining it. Also, the man's name is J.D (not J.P.) Salinger.
Joyce, Brava! And as at least one other reader has suggested, Maureen Dowd definitely owes you an apology!
107
I will add At Home In the World to my reading list. Catcher in the Rye has been off that reading (and teaching) list for a while already...Maybe the truth is Salinger was more like Holden than he wanted to admit. What a creep. We women have all known a man or men like him. So enamoured of their own voice, so certain of their power. They make all good men feel emasculated when in fact those good men are the ones we should seek. Thank you Ms. Maynard, for speaking truth to power, 20 years ago and today.
55
Joyce Maynard had the misfortune to be noticed, groomed, stalked and molested (forced oral sex) by a famous white man.
And she had the nerve to talk about it.
For that reason, she was ostracized.
Had she sucked it up, stayed mute, and never said a word (like Soon Yi who ended up agreeing to marry her super-creepy de facto step father (yuck !)) she would be left alone.
Like Allen, Salinger was a predator who liked barley legal young women.(where were Maynard's parents in all this ? My father would have taken a baseball bat to a creep like Salinger)
79
@r mackinnon She was "ostracized"-- really?-- because she exploited her sexual relationship with a famous author in order to advance her own career instead of earning recognition based on the merits of her own literary achievements. Whatever one thinks of Salinger-- we only have her spin on the relationship-- what she did was distasteful and dishonorable. Salinger's behavior doesn't change that.
1
@r mackinnon
Woody Allen is nothing like J.D. Salinger. Salinger was a creepy, reclusive serial predator who lured teenage girls like Joyce Maynard into his life, tried to exert total control over them, and after exploiting them would proceed to dump them. You obviously haven't read At Home In The World, which is an excellent book and doesn't shy away from the bizarre details of her own parents complicity in his seduction.
As for Allen, he is a very public figure whose works take pains to reflect a great deal about his life, folly and all - not unlike Joyce Maynard. Most of his romantic partners have been roughly his age or only slightly younger (Mia is 10 years younger), except for Stacey Nelkin (the model for Manhattan) and Soon-Yi Previn. He was never her stepfather in any way, de facto or otherwise, and barely knew her before Mia asked him to take her to a Knicks game. At this writing, they've been married for over 20 years.
Allen has been vilified recently because of Dylan Farrow's claim of sexual abuse - an accusation that conveniently arose in the midst of a bitter custody battle but was quickly and thoroughly examined by the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic at Yale-New Haven Hospital, whose investigation concluded that no abuse happened and that the 7 year old had likely been manipulated by her mother. Allen has never been accused of pedophilia by anyone else, further evidence that the charge is false since pedophilia generally manifests as an irresistible compulsion.
1
Not mentioned but implied is, perhaps the jealousy of other writers for the proximity Joyce Maynard had to the 'great writer'.
The relationship didn't work out.. story would've been totally different if it had. Maybe it was failed from the start. When a great deal is suddenly taken away from you, all you have left is your story. I want to read Joyce Maynards books, she has stories and if she didn't write, “At Home in the World,” it certainly someone else would have tried to.
6
Maynard writes: "That season, at a rare literary event to which I had been invited, an entire row of writers I respected greatly rose from their seats en masse and, as I took the stage, departed the room."
Why do I suspect that they were all men?
76
@Jesse Kornbluth
Don't be so sure Jesse. Loyalty to the clubs of celebrity and insider often overwhelm loyalty to principle or sisterhood.
8
@Jesse Kornbluth Because there weren't as many women writers of note in that era? But she makes it clear women were just as hard on her in the reviews. Unfortunately, we've drunk the kool-aid, internalized the misogyny, and accepted the ridiculous dogma that "great men" must be protected and their detractors slut-shamed.
9
@Jesse Kornbluth
Actually , Jesse, they were not all men.
The most vicious stuff written about me has come from (prominent) women writers.
5
Well said, Joyce Maynard. Like the many others you rightly take to task here I was angry with you for tarnishing the image of my hero, J. D. Salinger. I thank you now for starting me on the path that has led me to a better understanding of a writer whose work I still love just as much. I thank Margaret Salinger as well. Deeply, deeply grateful to you both for your extreme courage and beautiful honesty. Much preferable to know Mr. Salinger as a real person, horribly flawed and badly damaged (thank you too, Kenneth Slawinski) than as a phony idol. I recently visited Miami Beach, and, while I thought about bananafish and how easily and mistakenly we can seek the experience that might trap us, I thought about Sybil, and I thought about you, and I thought about that hundred dollars and “Get lost, kid.” I’m not particularly religious so this might not count, but God bless you.
27
I just read the linked 1999 Maureen Dowd article about Joyce Maynard and other women. As a result, I will refrain from reading her writing in the future, unless it is her thoughts on that article today.
68
This is deeply moving and troubling. I too was smitten with Salinger, although I could never quite claw my way through to the end of Raise High The Roofbeams, Carpenter. (Did anybody?) I've hardly read him since the age of 20 because I see now that he was a minor writer who through good cultural timing became a minor cult. You are owed many words of contrition and remorse, but you'll never get any from Dowd. Like Trump, she never apologizes.
56
Maynard is rightful, so very rightful, to feel aggrieved that the world in general reduces her existence to her once upon a time proximity to a man that the US literary world, at least, remains obsessed by. Foolishly obsessed, one might think.
Maynard has earned so much more than that, by making her own career (which in no way has ridden on that man's), and leading an adult, responsible, full life.
When she published that story in the Magazine so long ago, I read it. Much younger then than she was in that period, still, I was appalled. This was creepy! He was creepy! I was so glad she had gotten away from him -- for that was how I saw it, her escape, not an expulsion from paradise (which is what her critics seem to think). I also found his books creepy in the extreme, no matter how often my courses made something of his assigned reading.
33
One of the tragic aspects of the kind of sexual exploitation to which you were subjected is that the predator often chooses young people like you who are promising students and whose academic careers are derailed even if they survive emotionally to lead a productive life. My late husband was on the faculty of a different selective university and I heard too many stories like yours. Because the young person is often besotted with the articulate but amoral seducer, it often takes many years before he or she recognizes what happened
141
@Eva Arnott So true! My sister was besotted with her art teacher, who promised 4 female art students that I personally know (and who knows how many others) as early as 10th grade "A's" if he did what he wanted. He was in his 40's then.
She did what he wanted. Posed nude in the art closet during school hours. Went to his studio. Posed for him. You can guess the rest. She never had a successful art career; she always claimed that she was a "starving artist" while having affair after affair with married men. She never did learn how to manage money and further her own career without exchanging something for it.
I also knew a male student of this teacher. He got a recommendation from the teacher to RISD, no sex required, became a successful photographer.
I've heard from one of the other women who was this guy's "target." I know the others, but all are mum.
This was nothing but flattery to Salinger, and he used young women because the older ones weren't easily exploited.
I thank Joyce Maynard for speaking about it.
9
Having been dismissed, denied, negated and denigrated (by both men and women), that Ms Maynard was able to keep writing, keep publishing, is remarkable. That she can now pen this piece, with its clear-eyed, un-outraged, faintly ironic tone gives me hope that maybe, maybe, there is a path through the thicket of hypocritical group-think that is "popular opinion" (as created by thought brokers, amplified by the media, reflecting, defending and maintaining the status quo power structure).
I know I am often too tired and harried to think for myself, and I do rely, too often, on opinion brokers to do my thinking for me. I am, however, forever fascinated though by those capable of holding on to independent thought. The effort must seem Herculean, until one is vindicated 40 years later. As historian Charles Beard has said "The wheels of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine."
48
So why is your headline a question instead of a statement? After reading this, the answer is clear: He was a predator routinely preying on vulnerable teenagers. Thank you, Joyce, for setting the record straight. He remains a great writer, albeit a dirty old dude of one. I wish I was more shocked.
54
Maynard brings up the question never asked of Salinger. How many teenagers did he seduce before, during and after her? After reading Maynard's story, I imagine Salinger was as prolific a seducer as he was a writer.
145
@Antoine
Not everything dishonorable or offensive is illegal needs to be. That is a mark of a healthy civilization: We can still call people out and punish them socially without imprisoning them.
9
@L S Friedman Actually he wasn't a very prolific writer. I'm guessing that he was a more prolific seducer.
9
@Antoine, dear, we can't even get cops to prosecute sex crimes — rapes, prosecutable ones, with witnesses — and lock those creeps up. We don't process rape kits, that could help put them away.
Sex police? I'd agree to that, if it would get the predators off the streets, ensuring that all sex was consensual and not hurtful to its participants.
1
Salinger, a 53 year old man, writes to an 18 year old impressionable girl and woos her with his letters. Very seductive and he knew it. I would say he was the predator and she the prey.
I am glad she had the temerity to write her book about the relationship, even is writers and others shunned her.
What kind of writers blind themselves to evidence? It sounds like professional jealousy and trying to protect Salinger's reputation to me.
114
I think your comments are spot on. This teenager gave up a good live to be with someone she thought loved her. Her life went into the dumpster for a long time because of him. Because of his great writing talent too many people treat him like a sacred cow. Looks like Salinger used his talent for evil purposes. Lying to a teenage girl IS evil.
12
This part of Joyce's life story has always infuriated me. Today is no exception. For all the years that have come after, Joyce's bravery and her generous joyful life are stunning and I suppose we thankfully can say she's had the last word. I have known Joyce personally for many years and consider her a dear friend. I applaud her for always sharing her story. Her doing so changed my life many years ago when I read her book "At Home in the World." I know it also changed countless other lives as well. I applaud her ability to rise above not only what happened to her as such a young woman, but also the many things that were written and said about her for years. Thankfully the readers and friends who love her far outnumber those who sit in some kind of strange judgement. I wish we all were as strong, resilient and as brilliant as she is. Brava to you Joyce. I am profoundly grateful for our friendship, your gorgeous writing, your strength and your bravery. I know you will keep writing and I'm grateful for that too. All the best at Yale!
71
Thank you. I believe you.
30
I read At Home In The World recently and there is no doubt in my mind that Salinger used his power and reputation to have sex with starstruck teenagers. He was a creep. And not a great writer either, despite what people of a certain age seem to think. Thankfully the younger generation barely know he existed.
37
What happen to you is a perfect example of why so many women remained silent. I expect you will still be condemned for defending yourself.
38
Maureen Dowd owes Joyce Maynard an apology. In writing, please, Ms. Dowd, in one of your upcoming columns. It is never too late to right a grievous wrong.
233
@TinkLizzie
Maureen Dowd owes us all apologies -- for what she's done to Hillary, for starters.
10
She was a child of 18.
He was old enough at 53 to be her grandfather. Gag.
She was young and foolish, he was an old lech.
A fifty three year old man taking his clothes off in front of a 18 yr old woman is a yuck moment that should have brought some sanity to the man.
It was true then and it is true now.
''Gods with clay feet'' has been replaced with "gods with roving hands.''
22
Oh the irony, RM, to be the first commentator on this post, only to write an irrelevant tidbit about Salinger.
7
From Maureen Dowd's "Leech" column about Maynard:
"But experiencing the ordinary brutality of love does not make one a victim. It makes one an adult. Or it should."
Ms. Maynard was an 18 year old woman solicited by an admired, extremely private celebrity who was 58. 58! Let that sink in.
She was the victim, not a "leech". Shame on you, Maureen Dowd.
102
The column by Maureen Dowd that you link to is shocking in its tone, by today's presumably more enlightened standards; I would like to know how she judges that sentiment today. I think she owes you and Ms. Lewinsky apologies.
159
So, Salinger pulled this same routine on other impressionable teenage girls!
What a horrible predator...
And, what a pathetic figure, unable to ever grow up, to deal with adults on mature terms; forever, remaining The Catcher in the Rye.
25
What's with the title of this piece? How does the word 'predator' even enter the discussion concerning Ms. Maynard?
3
@caos
Missed the part about the forced oral sex? What about the rest of what was clearly an abusive and exploitative relationship? Or the part where he encouraged or at least countenanced her crucifixion by his friends and fans when she spoke the truth?
5
What an interesting - and disturbing - essay. After all these years the eighteen-year-old is still blamed for the affair and told to keep her mouth shut. Yes, "great men" of literature must have their "legacies" protected at all costs. Un-be-lieveable!
61
So your tormentor was Maureen Dowd. Why am I not surprised. Ms. Dowd conducted a snide little war against Hilary Clinton as well, accusing her of destroying feminism (!?) at one point, so you are in good company.
When I was 18 I read Dorothy Parker's review of Lolita and was astonished that she took the position that the Humbert Humbert character was a true artist and this excused his rape of a little girl. "She likes money," Ms. Parker sniffed. It was so disheartening to me that a woman would have such a poisonous attitude toward a female victim.
The purpose of art is to enrich life, not the other way around. The days when a literary reputation is an umbrella beneath which men can abuse women with impunity are over.
I am sorry you were attacked for having the audacity to reveal Salinger the Sage as the predator he was.
111
@jjones4619 There are issues with Lolita but as a writer Salinger is not worthy to be spoken of in the sae breath with Naboko
3
Ms. Parker was nothing if not poisonous! I'm the same age as Maynard and have viewed her with a jaundiced eye since reading her early essay so long ago. But nothing like the jaundiced way with which I view O'Dowd. And I won't even mention my low opinion of the pathetic Salinger (both his bad character and bad writing ). Do I think Maynard was Salinger's victim? Without question! It is the responsibility of every upstanding adult to do their best to protect youth from their naivete, their inexperience and their foolishness. Admittedly, usually, little can be done but what an adult of integrity and charachter can always do is to avoid exploiting these vulnerable points for one's own gain. Salinger was an exploiter of the youth who was Joyce Maynard. He was an opportunist of the lowest rank, saw a potential and attractive target and went for it. This happens with unhappy regularity. It's just in this case the perpetrator is also a sacred literary cow who even in death will have many many apologists, and among that throng, not surprisingly, can predictably be found
the poisonous Maureen O'Dowd
3
Thank you for sharing your experience again. Your abuse deserves recognition and Salinger should be seen as the predator that he was.
22
Salinger's fans remind me of Trump's base: they forgive him anything. But I've been harping about Salinger's predilection for (very) young girls for years. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-weaver/jd-salinger-revisited-you_b_1...
48
@Will I read your piece. Your evidence is pretty thin.
The more one learns of Salinger the more disturbed he seems. And no doubt Joyce Maynard was sufficiently attracted to the myth of this author that she could not see how damaged he was. I mean she was only 18 so she must have felt it was a great and special honor indeed to enter his life. Like so many of these special men, like Picasso as some have mentioned, I have never understood why having the sheer good luck to be elevated as a great artist gave one the right to be an indecent, self-centered, immature and rapacious abuser. I mean in the end the heck with Art if the grand reward is to indulge ones sick and broken inhumanity.
42
Today it seems horrifying and inexcusable that Ms. Maynard was stamped a tramp and villain in this story. We apparently don't like our (white, male) heroes to be shown for what they are. I'm so so very sorry this happened to you, Ms. Maynard. Thank you for being so brave. I'm sure there are countless more stories that are eerily similar.
105
That you persisted, that you were not broken says a great deal about you, Ms. Maynard. Misogyny, male privilege, all together in all their permutations: how they can sap the soul. Yet here you are, survivor, creator, a woman. I look forward to reading the book you are about to publish.
26
Tragic, that history took 20 years to catch up to her account. There's a special kind of pain in not being seen, in writing your story and having it so totally misunderstood. The record stands and the writer is indeed brave to allow readers to judge for themselves.
64
I lived in Ms Maynard's adopted California town for 40 years.
When I first learned she was living there, I hoped I might run into her--but of course it was with the same intentions as all of those in the back of the bookstore audiences. I wanted to ask about Him.
This poignant piece teaches me (late, I know), to try to keep my eyes and heart open to the quiet and non-obvious suffering that so many people endure when they've been victimized by those who take advantage of real or imagined power.
61
Predator or prey? It is not necessarily either/or.
8
Thank you for writing this piece. I am one of those people that has little interest in literary criticism. For me, Salinger is merely a name on books I never bothered to read and probably never will.
I do remember being 18, however. Even as a boy then, I recall how older people would flatter and manipulate a young man who thought he had all the answers. I see your article in this light. I also have daughters and it chills me to think of how they might have been used in a similar fashion as yourself.
Now, close to your age, I cannot, at all, fathom how your story could ever be read as anything other than an older man taking advantage of a young women.
50
I recently started re-reading Catcher. I must be the only person never to read it in college. I can see the mutual attraction such a work would create. I’ll have to pick up a copy of the author’s work as it sounds interesting.
1
18 is adulthood, correct? and the author wasn't working for the writer, or somehow dependent upon him for her professional future? I think it is always a little grotesques when an older man has a relationship for a younger woman but i am not sure if there is a predator in this story. if there is, simply by the nature of an older successful man being with a younger woman, then what does that say about any such relationships that did work out?
8
@alan well, if he sends an unsolicited letter to a much younger woman that is apparently a copy of a letter he has sent to many other much younger women, who appear because of their literary interests to be likely to respond, and asks them to give up everything in their lives to come and live with him, and then proves not to be responsible or emotionally faithful when they do so but continues to try to entice other young women to do the same...that seems predatory to me.
108
@Elizabeth Sounds more like he's a bad boyfriend who went after women who were OK with giving up everything.
1
@alan
The onus is upon the significantly older allegedly wiser adult (he was 58!!!) to realize an 18 year old doesn't have the emotional maturity to enter into a relationship with him.
If he pursues her anyway he is a predator. This goes for any gender combination.
4
I think Ms. Maynard was simply ahead of her times. For today is her day, in terms of both tools and values.
The values are obvious. No longer can powerful white man take advantage of women like her without paying a price. Cases in point - Aziz Ansari, the Duke lacrosse team, and that fraternity at UVA.
The tools are less obvious, and I hope if Ms. Maynard is reading this, she'll consider this advice. Today's social media platforms are a much better fit for survivor stories. Book people tend to be either elites or quite types. Whereas social media is for the masses. So my suggestion is that Ms. Maynard consider pushing out new versions of her work, via Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Huffington Post posts. Via small installments, with pictures, she will hit a much larger audience.
It also sounds like she could combine her Guatemalan writer's workshop with the cause of the asylum seekers, and these new tools. Why not train young Guatemalan teens to combine social media with powerful personal storytelling, to lift their chances of being granted asylum, or at least winning more Americans over to their plight? While I think it's noble for Ms. Maynard to want to pass on advice to her own daughter, I presume said daughter is white and privileged and that it might be just a tad more meaningful for Ms. Maynard to help Guatemalan teen moms, rather than rehashing a white privilege tryst over and over again.
1
@Trans Cat Mom It sounds like you're saying that only the suffering of the disenfranchised is worthy of our caring. Calling her experience a "white privilege tryst" is one of the most demeaning phrases I encountered lately. It's insulting to Maynard, to anyone victimized by sophisticated predators, and, frankly, to use and old-fashioned word (much like tryst) you should be ashamed of yourself.
22
@Trans Cat MomHow thoughtful of you to suggest that Ms. Maynard become a woman more acceptable to your view of who she should be than the woman she actually is! Your assumptions about her daughter and about "book people, ("elites or quite")?, are presumptuous at best.
9
@deepshade and @Laurie - I think both of you are behind the times, and your white privilege is showing.
Last night, yet another strong black progressive deposed yet another respectability politics practicing "professional." Just like what happened in Florida last week. Basically, the days of Becky's clutching their pearls and whining about minor indignities like barbecuing without a permit or making too much noise for their precious ears are over. And the same goes for some of this MeToo bandwagon jumping - whether it's Ms. Maynard, Asia Argento, or Arianna Grande trying to railroad a popular black preacher for "groping."
And with regard to Ms. Maynard, her relationship was exactly that - basically, a tryst. It lasted barely 9 months. And for crying out loud, this was a white woman, a notable author in her own right, who went to Yale, and who was in a consensual relationship with a white cis-het male celebrity.
Hear that? It's the world's tiniest violin. It's not at all out of place to suggest that she direct her talent towards alleviating the suffering of the disenfranchised.
I mean seriously! Go back and read what you wrote (@Laurie) - "It sounds like you're saying that only the suffering of the disenfranchised is worthy of our caring" - as if this is problematic. No wonder videos of Becky's being tone deaf are going viral. That's some next level white privilege there! Maybe you should check it. We all should, none of us are perfect.
Men evolved to be visually stimulated, and women evolved to be stimulated by resources, status and relationships. This dance of the species will not end, but we can only hope to keep it civilized. That men use resources, status, and the promise of relationships is not an "abuse of power" -- it is the nature of the beast. That women use their looks and the promise of sexual utopia is not an "abuse of male weakness," when they successfully turn their looks into babies and a home in the suburbs, out of whose windows the man looks dreaming of the sexual utopia he (briefly) had while he dreams of another. I do not see the reason to attack either side in the "battle of the sexes" as long as there is consent, and as long as there is no quid-pro-quo or hostile workplace sexual harassment. A quid-pro-quo relationship, on civilized terms, however, is as good as the "battle of the sexes" gets.
5
@Craig Mason Human beings have a higher and lower nature. What you're talking about is our lower nature. It is something we can transcend, but not without labor. There's nothing that requires a human being to be cheap and blind.
18
Me thinks you slept though the last 40 years. The beautiful suburban temptresses got degrees and careers.
24
@Craig Mason With this much of a difference in power and age there is no informed consent. You seek to justify abuse.
18
Just because J.D. Salinger was a reclusive person does not entitle him to control forever the stories of the people he "allowed" into his life. He lured a very young woman in to his home. She has the right to tell her story. The letters Salinger wrote to her were her property, and she had the right to dispose of them as she wished.
I'm tired of people acting like people in past decades were too ignorant to see behavior like Salinger's for what it was. We have been discussing these issues for fifty years. 1998 was not the dark ages. I read her story twenty years ago and saw Salinger for what he was: a predator who used his fame to blind everyone around him, even Maynard's mother. I'll never forget Maynard's description of sewing a dress with her mother for meeting Salinger for the first time. He's no different than Bill Cosby.
Salinger's defenders owe Joyce Maynard an apology.
224
Thank you for this. I will read your work, with no interest in anyone else.
Years ago I remember reading about this relationship. I always knew who the predator was, and it most certainly was not you.
40
Thank you for your willingness to engage with readers/the world yet again. Not easy. I'm fully sympathetic to everything you've been through over many decades and chapters. I'm glad that your particular voice is part of this ongoing discussion about women being heard, believed, and treated with fundamental respect. I might have been guilty in the past of wanting to side with talented, morally-compromised men because I found them fascinating. Sounds crazy, when written in black and white. Thank you.
24
I believed you then, I believe you now. You are a strong woman. Sometimes truth wins. Many times, for women, it does not.
45
Thank you, Ms. Mayard, for continuing to the fight the fight. The tide is turning, but it is too late to undo the damage that society and your fellow writers inflicted upon you. I hope you can take solace in knowing that things are changing -- slowly, but still changing and that there are supporters out there who understand.
48
Thank you. It amazes me that for certain men, the “great artist” myth seems to excuse all behavior. You were brave to tell your story 20 years ago, and still are. And you are strong.
214
@MSP
There's a joke in academia that now, for the most part, dating students is verboten (and post-Larry Nassar) .. there will be fewer college presidents and college deans with younger wives.
Res ipsa -- the thing speaks for itself.
Compelling account. As always, love, its betrayal, art and lust make for a complicated story.
9
@Raymond
What is complicated about this? A middle aged man capitalizes on his fame to pursue teenagers, using and discarding them when something new and younger comes along. Seems quite straightforward to me.
92
Why complicated? Power over naivety usually wins.
12
The attacks on Joyce Maynard always infuriated me, because we all have the right to tell our own story. I always admired her guts for telling her own -- despite the immense pressures at the time to shut up. She has always been an inspiration for those who are told that someone's story is more precious and important than their own.
154
@Evy I would have a completely different attitude towards Maynard if she had left Salinger, nursed her emotional wounds, and got down to writing her own work and putting it out there like other writers who don't have the great fortune of being attached to an established, famous writer. And then, once respected and admired for her own work, she wrote an interesting memoir about her relationship with Salinger. That, she did not do.
@Bill Van Dyk Yes, she did do exactly what you suggest. She had books published long before her memoir about Salinger, one of which was made into the movie "To Die For".
3
@Evy - Exactly. The narrative looks at her as a minor character in Salinger's story, which is something the world does with women and male artists. She is her own main character and she deserves to tell her own story!
4
Thank you for reminding us how difficult it has been in the past for women to speak or write about anything men in power find threatening. And as you noted, those vile critical voices are not only male. I hope we have at last hit a turning point and that women will not be shamed for exposing abuse of power, but we will have to see. Those in power won’t let go of it easily.
117
I read Joyce Maynard's beautifully written At Home In The World over a decade ago and ever since have been stunned whenever people speak glowingly of Salinger the man. I especially remember the ending of the book when he so callously abandoned her in Florida, this bright young girl who'd given up her Yale scholarship and her family and friends to be with him. And why did he, this abusive control freak, throw her over? To be with a woman even younger. It's time for all those reviewers to apologize to Maynard. Just because we all loved Holden Caulfield is no reason to love the author. Thank you, Joyce, for being so brave all those years ago. You've been a great inspiration to many writers (including myself). We believe you!
Laurie Gough
312
People who act terribly in their personal relationships produce great art. Dickens was a nasty one, for example. Most of us make the naive error of assuming that when art speaks truth to us, the artist lives truth. We need to be disabused of this tendency occasionally.
PS. I enjoy your work, Laurie Gough.
8
@Laurie Gough How many people actually "speak glowingly of Salinger the man?" How *can* anyone even speak of him in that way, given how reclusive he was? Most of the people who might be able to lived near him in his later years, and my understanding is that they've all more-or-less chosen to respect his privacy.
I think you are confusing people who admire his *writing* with "speak glowingly of Salinger the man." They are *not* the same thing.
1
Maynard’s take offers echoes of Nanette, in which Hannah Gadsby eviscerates Picasso for his relationships with women, in particularly with a 17 year old girl he considered to be “in her prime.” Why are we still fascinated with the great man narrative, and why do we crumble so many women under the wheels of artistic progress?
212
Salinger lived in Cornish, New Hampshire, and would come across the river to Windsor Vermont. Occasionally, he would be seen in a small diner. He was generally unapproachable, and seemed to live an isolated, excessively private life. At the same time, also living in the area was actor Charles Bronson. Bronson was much more public and approachable, but not particularly friendly. Near the end, Bronson began suffering the effects of dementia, and it affected his personality for the worse.
While Bronson is buried in a local cemetery under an impressive marker, Salinger's final resting place is a local mystery, much as he was in life.
12
@RM
How does this comment address Ms. Maynard's article...
13
@Pia
It corroborates that Salinger was an odd person and generally viewed as such by the community in which he lived. And it contrasts his local behavior with that of another larger than life person who lived in the same general community at the same point in time.
5
@RM
Also, Charles Bronson lost his wife, Jill Ireland, to cancer. A process like that can also help "humanize" you.