“Somewhere in this story there may be a predator.”
September 8, 2018 5:34 AM Subscribe
Was She J.D. Salinger’s Predator or His Prey? by Joyce Maynard [The New York Times] “It has been said of me, in the pages of this newspaper, that I am a predator. The author of those words was hardly alone in her assessment. In 1998, nearly 20 years before the #MeToo movement, I published a book about my relationship with a famous and revered writer who sought me out when he was 53 and I was 18. [...] My crime — which earned me the dubious distinction of being, in the opinion of one prominent critic, the author of possibly “the worst book ever written” — lay in my decision, after 25 years of silence, to write a memoir in which I told the story of my relationship with a powerful older man.”
• What Writing About My Abusive Relationship With J.D. Salinger Taught Me About Silencing Women's Voices by Joyce Maynard [Bustle]
• What Writing About My Abusive Relationship With J.D. Salinger Taught Me About Silencing Women's Voices by Joyce Maynard [Bustle]
“I name two experiences of damage here — damage, and abuse. Equally painful as what happened when I was 18 is what took place when I was 44 — when, after maintaining silence about my time with Salinger for 25 years, I published a book that told what happened. Viewed from the perspective of what’s happening now in the Weinstein Affair, the response to a my story might serve as a fairly strong indicator of where our culture stood back then concerning women who spoke the truth about painful sexual experiences with highly respected men. At the time At Home in the World was published — in the fall of 1998 — virtually the entire literary world (and seemingly everyone for whom Catcher in the Rye remained the most sacred of books) responded with outrage, not simply about my memoir, but more so, towards me, with brutal personal attacks. Highly respected critics condemned me for violating the privacy of a man who had made it plain he wanted to be left alone. In the eyes of a vast majority of those who wrote about my story (and many did), I had exploited a great man.”• Salinger in Love by Joyce Maynard [Vanity Fair] [Excerpt from her memoir At Home in the World]
“In the spring of 1972, an 18-year-old Yale freshman with dreams of literary glory wrote a precocious, provocative cover story for The New York Times Magazine. Among the deluge of responses—from readers, editors, Hollywood directors—was a letter signed by that most famously reclusive star of American fiction, J. D. Salinger, which sparked first a correspondence, then a conversation, and then an intense nine-month affair. In an excerpt from her controversial new memoir, *At Home in the World,* the author recalls the blossoming of her romance with the 53-year-old Salinger and its cruel, chilling end.”• The Cost of Being Joyce Maynard: Twenty Years After At Home in the World [Jezebel]
“To many, Maynard will always be the woman who moved in with J.D. Salinger and had the gall to write a book about it. “If I live another 40 years, I know that my obituary will start out with, you know, ‘When she was young, she slept with Salinger,’” Maynard says in the park. Salinger and Maynard’s cohabitation lasted less than a year, and it is often mischaracterized as an affair, a label Maynard rejects. “Oh, I had a love affair? No, I did not. I did not have an affair,” she says. “Later, I found out what an affair was, that wasn’t it.” It hardly matters, though, as the label stuck. Publishing At Home in the World has had an outsized effect on Maynard’s reputation. It largely destroyed it, transforming her into a cartoon villain of the publishing world, a caricature of the gabby woman who thoughtlessly wields her pen.”
Any article that describes an 18-year-old girl who was the victim of a 53-year-old man as a "teenage lover" has already failed in any attempt to give the woman her due.
posted by Anonymous at 6:17 AM on September 8, 2018
posted by Anonymous at 6:17 AM on September 8, 2018
Prey. No question.
posted by 41swans at 6:29 AM on September 8, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by 41swans at 6:29 AM on September 8, 2018 [5 favorites]
Thanks for posting this. I've been a huge fan of Maynard's writing since I first discovered it, some time in the 80s. Even as one of those people who blamed and slut-shamed people like Monica Lewinski, and booed Yoko Ono in movie theaters showing Let It Be, I could see how unfairly she was treated in the press when the story of her relationship with Salinger came out. And reading the original articles - the ones she links in the NYT piece - is just painful. I'd bet I could search the internet for a long time without finding the word "oversharer" used to describe any male writer.
I clearly remember reading At Home in the World when it first came out, and at one point finding myself several steps away from where I'd been sitting. No plan, no decision to get up - I just reacted so strongly to what she was writing that I involuntarily put the book down and walked away. She's an amazing and powerful writer; it's criminal that her writing isn't taken much more seriously, and will always be overshadowed by the whole Salinger thing.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 6:36 AM on September 8, 2018 [9 favorites]
I clearly remember reading At Home in the World when it first came out, and at one point finding myself several steps away from where I'd been sitting. No plan, no decision to get up - I just reacted so strongly to what she was writing that I involuntarily put the book down and walked away. She's an amazing and powerful writer; it's criminal that her writing isn't taken much more seriously, and will always be overshadowed by the whole Salinger thing.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 6:36 AM on September 8, 2018 [9 favorites]
Predator. While I'm shaking my head so hard at her being called a predator, I'm realizing that at least her first two novels: Baby Love and To Die For, published before her first memoir, are very much about predators. Baby Love several, To Die For primarily one. I don't have the stomach to look at what critics and reviewers wrote about them, but I'm guessing it's not sympathetic.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 7:12 AM on September 8, 2018
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 7:12 AM on September 8, 2018
I don't have the stomach to look at what critics and reviewers wrote about them, but I'm guessing it's not sympathetic.
I'll be completely honest, I had not heard of her until I read this essay. That might just be on me, but I also wonder at a more general consensus among literary critics, reviewers, the larger capital L - Literature community, to just dismiss her as a writer and brand her as someone seeking fame/money. None of this is surprising.
*sighs*
posted by Fizz at 7:43 AM on September 8, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'll be completely honest, I had not heard of her until I read this essay. That might just be on me, but I also wonder at a more general consensus among literary critics, reviewers, the larger capital L - Literature community, to just dismiss her as a writer and brand her as someone seeking fame/money. None of this is surprising.
*sighs*
posted by Fizz at 7:43 AM on September 8, 2018 [3 favorites]
I fucking hate that fucking Salinger asshole.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:49 AM on September 8, 2018 [30 favorites]
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:49 AM on September 8, 2018 [30 favorites]
Predator. While I'm shaking my head so hard at her being called a predator, I'm realizing that at least her first two novels: Baby Love and To Die For, published before her first memoir, are very much about predators.
Clarifying point here: are you saying a child was a preyed on a famous and powerful old man because the books she wrote decades later are about predators?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:56 AM on September 8, 2018
Clarifying point here: are you saying a child was a preyed on a famous and powerful old man because the books she wrote decades later are about predators?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:56 AM on September 8, 2018
Don't miss the link to this repulsive Maureen Dowd piece.
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/19/opinion/liberties-leech-women-in-love.html
posted by tangosnail at 9:21 AM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/19/opinion/liberties-leech-women-in-love.html
posted by tangosnail at 9:21 AM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
Clarifying point here: are you saying a child was a preyed on a famous and powerful old man because the books she wrote decades later are about predators?
No, definitely not. I'm just saying that predators really jumps out as a theme, thinking about the books now, as opposed to when I originally read them.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 9:22 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
No, definitely not. I'm just saying that predators really jumps out as a theme, thinking about the books now, as opposed to when I originally read them.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 9:22 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
I never read that classic, A Catcher in the Rye. The more I learn about Salinger, the less I’m inclined to do so.
I bet 15 year old me would have loved it, though.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 10:28 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
I bet 15 year old me would have loved it, though.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 10:28 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
I never read that classic, A Catcher in the Rye. The more I learn about Salinger, the less I’m inclined to do so.
They're not the same thing, but this makes me think of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Mostly because I firmly believe that there are some books that we need to encounter and then outgrow or realize are just not for us. And I feel like the kind of selfish teenage egotism of A Catcher in the Rye is one of those things. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but it just popped into my brain with your comment.
posted by Fizz at 10:42 AM on September 8, 2018 [4 favorites]
They're not the same thing, but this makes me think of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Mostly because I firmly believe that there are some books that we need to encounter and then outgrow or realize are just not for us. And I feel like the kind of selfish teenage egotism of A Catcher in the Rye is one of those things. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but it just popped into my brain with your comment.
posted by Fizz at 10:42 AM on September 8, 2018 [4 favorites]
I put myself into a very bad state of sleep deprivation earlier this summer by picking up At Home In The World... and being unable to put it down all night til the last page. She is a fantastic writer.
I suspect that some of the misogynistic criticism and dismissal she's received from the literary world is connected to the fact that for years she made her living as a writer for women's magazines and otherwise wrote about family life and motherhood.
posted by twoplussix at 11:01 AM on September 8, 2018 [3 favorites]
I suspect that some of the misogynistic criticism and dismissal she's received from the literary world is connected to the fact that for years she made her living as a writer for women's magazines and otherwise wrote about family life and motherhood.
posted by twoplussix at 11:01 AM on September 8, 2018 [3 favorites]
Related: Dave Kellett has been doing a series of "Anatomy of Authors" comics, and yesterday, he did J.D.Salinger.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:13 AM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:13 AM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
I am not remotely sympathetic to Joyce Maynard’s repeated tales of woe. You know what? I had an affair with a 53 year old famous artist when I was 17. In retrospect, I have a few more emotional scars than I thought at the time or for years, so I get that. I did not, however, grow up to adopt then dump two children. Rehoming kids like they are puppies who ate the couch does not sit well with me. Hell, I don’t even like it when they’re actual puppies.
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:59 PM on September 8, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:59 PM on September 8, 2018 [9 favorites]
Don't miss the link to this repulsive Maureen Dowd piece.
God what was Dowd’s problem. She was just the worst type of cool girl (tm) constantly shitting on other women to make herself seem smarter.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 1:52 PM on September 8, 2018 [11 favorites]
God what was Dowd’s problem. She was just the worst type of cool girl (tm) constantly shitting on other women to make herself seem smarter.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 1:52 PM on September 8, 2018 [11 favorites]
Rehoming kids like they are puppies who ate the couch does not sit well with me.
I do not know the details of Joyce’s family life but I have seen enough of older child adoption to know it is very difficult, on both sides, and that treatment of children’s mental health is in its infancy. ODD, seperation anxiety, and reattachment disorder can be devastating, especially if there are not supports for the whole family. Incomplete/disrupted adoptions of non-infants is a lot more common than you think. I understand the need to see the situation as black and white, but reserving judgement in the face of so little information (a blessing to the girls) would be the compassionate thing to do.
posted by saucysault at 2:19 PM on September 8, 2018 [18 favorites]
I do not know the details of Joyce’s family life but I have seen enough of older child adoption to know it is very difficult, on both sides, and that treatment of children’s mental health is in its infancy. ODD, seperation anxiety, and reattachment disorder can be devastating, especially if there are not supports for the whole family. Incomplete/disrupted adoptions of non-infants is a lot more common than you think. I understand the need to see the situation as black and white, but reserving judgement in the face of so little information (a blessing to the girls) would be the compassionate thing to do.
posted by saucysault at 2:19 PM on September 8, 2018 [18 favorites]
From the Jezebel article linked above: [Maynard's] harshest critics bend over backward to declare her self-serving, while her advocates argue that her stories have value. No one seems to suggest it could be a bit of both.
A lot of both, I think.
posted by rpfields at 2:23 PM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
A lot of both, I think.
posted by rpfields at 2:23 PM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
I am not remotely sympathetic to Joyce Maynard’s repeated tales of woe. You know what? I had an affair with a 53 year old famous artist when I was 17. In retrospect, I have a few more emotional scars than I thought at the time or for years, so I get that. I did not, however, grow up to adopt then dump two children. Rehoming kids like they are puppies who ate the couch does not sit well with me. Hell, I don’t even like it when they’re actual puppies.
You had an affair with older celebrity, so it's no big deal when a celebrity serially preys on teenage girls? You got over it, so they should get over it? She was a bad mother, so she deserved it?
Anyway, this was news to me. I find it disgusting and appalling, but it also makes sense. Salinger always seemed to me like he was stuck in adolescence emotionally and psychologically. I think the only people he could probably relate to were kids. If I could pick a state of mind to be stuck in, it would not be my adolescent brain. I can't excuse his behavior, but I do feel badly for both of them.
posted by xammerboy at 4:42 PM on September 8, 2018 [14 favorites]
You had an affair with older celebrity, so it's no big deal when a celebrity serially preys on teenage girls? You got over it, so they should get over it? She was a bad mother, so she deserved it?
Anyway, this was news to me. I find it disgusting and appalling, but it also makes sense. Salinger always seemed to me like he was stuck in adolescence emotionally and psychologically. I think the only people he could probably relate to were kids. If I could pick a state of mind to be stuck in, it would not be my adolescent brain. I can't excuse his behavior, but I do feel badly for both of them.
posted by xammerboy at 4:42 PM on September 8, 2018 [14 favorites]
I did not, however, grow up to adopt then dump two children. Rehoming kids like they are puppies who ate the couch does not sit well with me. Hell, I don’t even like it when they’re actual puppies.
Maynard admitted her failure to give the girls the home they needed, took responsibility for it, and placed them with a family she knew who had a bigger support network than she was able to provide. Maybe you have knowledge we don't have, but your reading feels a tad ungenerous. I'm actually not a huge fan of Maynard, but adoptions fail for a lot of reasons, and bio or no I tend to think it's better for children to be in families who love and want them.
And the idea that because she's an awful person she deserved to be preyed on by a 53 three year old writer as a teenager is-- well--- kinda gross.
posted by frumiousb at 4:59 PM on September 8, 2018 [28 favorites]
Maynard admitted her failure to give the girls the home they needed, took responsibility for it, and placed them with a family she knew who had a bigger support network than she was able to provide. Maybe you have knowledge we don't have, but your reading feels a tad ungenerous. I'm actually not a huge fan of Maynard, but adoptions fail for a lot of reasons, and bio or no I tend to think it's better for children to be in families who love and want them.
And the idea that because she's an awful person she deserved to be preyed on by a 53 three year old writer as a teenager is-- well--- kinda gross.
posted by frumiousb at 4:59 PM on September 8, 2018 [28 favorites]
I have received many letters from readers. Some are from women with chillingly similar stories to share, of powerful older men who, when these women were very young, captured their exceedingly naïve trust, as well as their hearts, and altered the course of their lives.
I have also received letters and emails from women around my age, with a more familiar story to tell: of having received a letter long ago, around the age of 18 — an absolutely captivating letter, magical, even — composed in a voice they recognized as that of Holden Caulfield, though bearing an even more familiar name at the bottom of the page and containing words I could recite, I know them so well. It turns out that at least one of the recipients of these letters was carrying on her correspondence with Salinger during the very winter when I was living with him, so careful never to disturb his writing.
I feel like I know each of these facets of the story fairly well, because of different men I've encountered. I know of a couple women who got the kind of captivating, magical letters I once did from one particular dude, complete with his usual set pieces. It also reminds me of the guy a few friends and I all dated in high school, who would write us each the same "poems" that turned out to be borrowed song lyrics. We all laugh about it now, but it's a bit sad, too. Even this supposed literary standout did the same damn thing. And I'm thinking of a guy I know who tells the same stories over and over again, to the point that I tune out. They were so captivating when I was in my early twenties, but in my mid-thirties, the charm has worn off... I've seen all of this enough that I've started to become wary of anyone who seems to have a shtick of some sort. Enough with the raconteurs. I start to get why some online daters won't ever engage in long correspondence with someone they haven't met. It makes me think of this Rayland Baxter song. It makes me think about evolution—like where did we go wrong as a species that some people think this is adaptive behavior? But of course it strikes a nerve and upsets me because I actually like long correspondence.
Does everyone get to a point where they just relate the same stories over and over as they get older, or is this particularly a thing with aging dudes who've managed to reach a point where they're no longer leading the exciting, razor's-edge lives they perhaps were in their earlier years, and so over and over again they try to find some woman who gives a shit about their banter and their aging set pieces? In my more charitable moments, I'm sure it's both—I have sympathy for those who are feeling their age but just want someone to share their thoughts and experiences with—but I don't have sympathy for those who turn abusive or scammy as part of some misguided strategy.
Anyway, I feel like I should read her initial memoir. Maybe it'll give me some insight.
posted by limeonaire at 5:04 PM on September 8, 2018 [10 favorites]
I have also received letters and emails from women around my age, with a more familiar story to tell: of having received a letter long ago, around the age of 18 — an absolutely captivating letter, magical, even — composed in a voice they recognized as that of Holden Caulfield, though bearing an even more familiar name at the bottom of the page and containing words I could recite, I know them so well. It turns out that at least one of the recipients of these letters was carrying on her correspondence with Salinger during the very winter when I was living with him, so careful never to disturb his writing.
I feel like I know each of these facets of the story fairly well, because of different men I've encountered. I know of a couple women who got the kind of captivating, magical letters I once did from one particular dude, complete with his usual set pieces. It also reminds me of the guy a few friends and I all dated in high school, who would write us each the same "poems" that turned out to be borrowed song lyrics. We all laugh about it now, but it's a bit sad, too. Even this supposed literary standout did the same damn thing. And I'm thinking of a guy I know who tells the same stories over and over again, to the point that I tune out. They were so captivating when I was in my early twenties, but in my mid-thirties, the charm has worn off... I've seen all of this enough that I've started to become wary of anyone who seems to have a shtick of some sort. Enough with the raconteurs. I start to get why some online daters won't ever engage in long correspondence with someone they haven't met. It makes me think of this Rayland Baxter song. It makes me think about evolution—like where did we go wrong as a species that some people think this is adaptive behavior? But of course it strikes a nerve and upsets me because I actually like long correspondence.
Does everyone get to a point where they just relate the same stories over and over as they get older, or is this particularly a thing with aging dudes who've managed to reach a point where they're no longer leading the exciting, razor's-edge lives they perhaps were in their earlier years, and so over and over again they try to find some woman who gives a shit about their banter and their aging set pieces? In my more charitable moments, I'm sure it's both—I have sympathy for those who are feeling their age but just want someone to share their thoughts and experiences with—but I don't have sympathy for those who turn abusive or scammy as part of some misguided strategy.
Anyway, I feel like I should read her initial memoir. Maybe it'll give me some insight.
posted by limeonaire at 5:04 PM on September 8, 2018 [10 favorites]
My female English teacher handed me a copy of A Catcher in the Rye when I was 15, saying "I think you'll like this", but I found the narrator so repellent I could not get through 3 pages.
Arthur Bremer was sympathetic and endearing by comparison.
posted by jamjam at 5:10 PM on September 8, 2018
Arthur Bremer was sympathetic and endearing by comparison.
posted by jamjam at 5:10 PM on September 8, 2018
No, I don’t think she deserved it, assuming you mean an abusive relationship, nobody deserves that and I didn’t say that. Nor did she deserve to be preyed on and I’m not sure where you are getting that from my comment. I brought up my own similar past to say I do understand that older man/teenage girl power dynamic all too well.
And no, I don’t know all the details of the adoption and subsequent relinquishing of the children. I do have a close friend who also adopted from Ethiopia and I’m not unfamiliar with RAD.
I hope the children are doing well. The adoption was very public - she wrote several articles, got a lot of coverage - but the relinquishment two years later less so. She seemed blasé and almost offhand about it in the interview I heard and something about her comments then struck me as off. I have never really forgotten it.
My impressions of Maynard have all in all not been good ones. She wrote the initial memoir - I remember when it came out - got a lot of press and a lot of support as well as a lot of flack which no, she should not have gotten. But sInce then she keeps harking back to it, over and over, she never quite lets go. Her novels all revolve around a similar theme and every few years she ends up back in the public eye. It’s not really surprising that Salinger was a monster, nor do I think she was ever lying, but I don’t think she gets a halo, either.
posted by mygothlaundry at 6:55 PM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
And no, I don’t know all the details of the adoption and subsequent relinquishing of the children. I do have a close friend who also adopted from Ethiopia and I’m not unfamiliar with RAD.
I hope the children are doing well. The adoption was very public - she wrote several articles, got a lot of coverage - but the relinquishment two years later less so. She seemed blasé and almost offhand about it in the interview I heard and something about her comments then struck me as off. I have never really forgotten it.
My impressions of Maynard have all in all not been good ones. She wrote the initial memoir - I remember when it came out - got a lot of press and a lot of support as well as a lot of flack which no, she should not have gotten. But sInce then she keeps harking back to it, over and over, she never quite lets go. Her novels all revolve around a similar theme and every few years she ends up back in the public eye. It’s not really surprising that Salinger was a monster, nor do I think she was ever lying, but I don’t think she gets a halo, either.
posted by mygothlaundry at 6:55 PM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
but sInce then she keeps harking back to it, over and over, she never quite lets go. Her novels all revolve around a similar theme and every few years she ends up back in the public eye.
How many famous male authors write the same book over and over again, say about a middle aged English professor having sex with a barely legal student, or something similarly gross, and get accolades for how "raw" and "talented" they are?
Yeah how dare she write about being on the other side of that huh?
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:24 PM on September 8, 2018 [24 favorites]
How many famous male authors write the same book over and over again, say about a middle aged English professor having sex with a barely legal student, or something similarly gross, and get accolades for how "raw" and "talented" they are?
Yeah how dare she write about being on the other side of that huh?
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:24 PM on September 8, 2018 [24 favorites]
Well said. Sounds like I misunderstood. Also, I am not at all familiar with Maynard.
There's a new book being published about Steinbeck, written by one of his ex-wives:
There's a new book being published about Steinbeck, written by one of his ex-wives:
By her account, Steinbeck rarely showed affection to her or their two sons, Thomas and John Jr, and had never wanted any children. When she was experiencing problems during her pregnancy with John Jr, Steinbeck told her that she had “complicated” his life during a busy period of writing. When John Jr arrived prematurely in 1946, she recalls Steinbeck telling her: “I wish to Christ he’d die, he’s taking up too much of your fucking time.” She identifies the conversation as “the moment when love died”.posted by xammerboy at 8:25 PM on September 8, 2018 [7 favorites]
“He never cried for me. He never cried for his sons. He never cried for anybody. But he cried for a rat called Burgess,” she wrote. “John was a sadistic man, of many emotions, but being sadistic was one of his unattractive qualities. He would let people in and set Burgess loose and gain a great sense of enjoyment, watching people scream and pull up their legs.”
No, I don’t think she deserved it, assuming you mean an abusive relationship, nobody deserves that and I didn’t say that. Nor did she deserve to be preyed on and I’m not sure where you are getting that from my comment. I brought up my own similar past to say I do understand that older man/teenage girl power dynamic all too well.
Okay, it wasn't clear to me from your comment. I read it that you did not feel sorry for her "tale of woe" (subject in question being her Salinger relationship") since you do not like how she handled the adoption.
posted by frumiousb at 10:09 PM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
Okay, it wasn't clear to me from your comment. I read it that you did not feel sorry for her "tale of woe" (subject in question being her Salinger relationship") since you do not like how she handled the adoption.
posted by frumiousb at 10:09 PM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
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posted by Fizz at 5:38 AM on September 8, 2018 [24 favorites]