memoir details past affair

J.D. Salinger had poor judgment with women, or such was my belief after reading Joyce Maynard’s 1999 memoir, “At Home in the World.”

A professor in one of my Journalism classes ranted about the memoir last week, which is what prompted me to check it out. He could barely conceal his dislike for Ms. Maynard, whom he described as the kind of woman likely to pause in mid-sentence and ask, “Enough about me. What do you think about me?” After reading “At Home in the World,” that seemed like a fairly generous way of describing her.

“At Home” chronicles Maynard’s affair and subsequent break up with Salinger. She was 18 at the time, and he was 53. The relationship endured for ten months. Much of their time together was spent holed up in Salinger’s home in Cornish, New Hampshire.

Salinger’s living habits factor heavily into the memoir. Maynard details quirky things, like how he adhered to a strict diet of frozen lamb burgers and sunflower seeds. Smoked salmon was a treasured splurge for the duo. Ms. Maynard recounts one instance where she and Salinger, frustrated with having to take trips into the city to buy said prized salmon, resolved to smoke it themselves. She watched on as he struggled to dip salmon into their fireplace. It came out coated in a thick blanket of soot. Although gross, they ate it anyway.

These asides were the most interesting thing about the memoir, which I admittedly thumbed through. “At Home in the World” also tells of Ms. Maynard’s life post-Salinger - of her marriage, divorce, children, and eventual success with “To Die For,” a novel inspired by the real-life case of Pamela Smart.

But her memoir is really anchored on one big mystery. Why did she get dumped by J.D. Salinger? Was it because J.D - or Jerry, as she intimately refers to him as throughout her memoir - simply tired of her as she aged? Was it because she needled him too much for a baby, even though they never once had sex?

Ms. Maynard doesn’t have a clue. But it seems pretty obvious why he tossed her out. Her world-weary account of growing up in the 60s caught Salinger’s attention from afar. He professed to have found in her a kindred spirit, or landsman, as he says in a letter. But as he spent time with her, he seemed to notice a few things.

Namely, how eager she was for fame and accolades. She described the world in a frustrated (Caulfield-esque?) fashion, but it wasn’t genuine. Far from being weary, she seemed to hunger for all the things she had disparaged of in her article.

She also grew intrusive, actually giving out his private phone number to publishers. When her parents broke up, they started calling the house frequently, asking for his relationship advice. It got to be too much for the guy. He broke it off while they were vacationing together in Florida. And according to her memoir, Ms. Maynard spent much of the 70s moping around because of it.

She ultimately comes across as a woman scorned, but hardly avenged, in her memoir’s token climax. She confronts him a quarter century later, demanding explanations. Of course, this seems like something her publisher put her up to (your memoir needs a juicy ending!), and Salinger sees right through it.

“Are you writing a book?” he asks when she arrives at his doorstep. She skirts the question and demands he answer her own. Instead, he gives her a sound verbal lashing, the kind he probably should have given her years ago. He accuses her of squandering her career, of writing trash and gossip. He claims she always had an inflated sense her own abilities and that he knew she would never amount to much, anyway.

And then he calls her out for trying to exploit their relationship.

To her credit, “At Home in the World” could have been worse. Her accounts of Salinger having lots of movie nights and attending all his son’s sports games seem tame by tell-all standards. But was it in poor taste to break her silence after all these years? Certainly. Having a relationship with someone of such magnitude mandates a code of silence which Ms. Maynard breeched in writing her memoir.

But Salinger was asking for it. Revered literary figure has affair with teenager? It’s no surprise she wrote about it. The only surprise is that it took her 25 years to do it.

-SM.