J.D., We Hardly Know Ye

This month Pocket Books publishes Dream Catcher, a memoir by J.D. Salinger’s daughter, Margaret. (Click here to buy it.) In 1998, Sarah Kerr and Cynthia Kling reviewed a memoir by Joyce Maynard, who at age 18 became J.D. Salinger’s lover. Also that year, Alex Beam mocked the narcissistic career of Maynard, his former college classmate. In 1999, Beam compared the media strategies of two famous recluses—Salinger and Thomas Pynchon. Also that year, Mim Udovich argued that Maynard’s first novel presents a more endearing picture of her affair with Salinger than her memoir does. Earlier this month, Slate’s “Chatterbox” investigated the mysteriously delayed publication of Salinger’s short story “Hapworth 16, 1924.” Currently in Slate, “Culturebox” defends Margaret Salinger’s book and analyzes its critical drubbing.