Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno

(Simon & Schuster, $38)

J.D. Salinger might have mustered grudging respect for this “exhaustively reported” biography, said Scott Bowles in USA Today. Though the famously reclusive author would have resented the intrusions on his privacy, he abhorred lazy journalism, which this 600-page tome certainly isn’t. Writer David Shields and filmmaker Shane Salerno conducted 200 interviews across the eight years they spent researching the book—as well as an associated documentary—and they’ve been rewarded with “journalistic gold.” The co-authors report, among other things, that the author of The Catcher in the Rye was far from a shut-in, that he suffered deep shame about a minor physical deformity, and that five books he left behind will be published later this decade. The result is “the most revealing portrait yet” of a towering literary figure.

“So everything is explained, except, of course, that it is not,” said Carl Rollyson in The Wall Street Journal. Shields and Salerno dig up much dirt on their subject, then conclude that Salinger’s signature pessimism was the product of two “wounds,” one from harrowing experiences in World War II, the other from being born with only one testicle. Both claims, though, are suspect: The testicle detail is attributed to two unidentified Salinger lovers, and Catcher’s misanthropic hero, Holden Caulfield, appeared in Salinger’s fiction before America even entered the war. This “exasperating” book contains some interesting raw material; perhaps another biographer will make better use of it.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Biographers and readers alike should steer clear, said Laurie Muchnick in Bloomberg.com. True, Shields and Salerno have included insights from Army buddies, family members, and neighbors of Salinger’s in this book’s collage-like, oral-history-style text. But the bulk of it is commentary from people who had little to no contact with Salinger—including actor John Cusack and the author of a CliffsNotes-style Catcher in the Rye study guide. Whatever their intent, Shields and Salerno have packed their book with “so much misleading garbage” that readers will feel sorry for its subject’s ghost.