I wish I had just 1/100th of Salinger’s mysterious personality, sadly I have but a speck of mystery within.

Overall enjoyed this read. I knew little to nothing about JDS’s life prior to reading this biography, and can now confidently say that I know a little about his life.

“It’s evident Salinger has a saint complex. He wants to be a saint. The trouble is, he doesn’t have a saintly personality—quite the opposite—he is egotistical, ill tempered, unforgiving. But he wants to be a saint because saints are above the humans, they are unstoppably superior.”

having read Salinger's published collection, this curious biography and critique sheds much light on the writing and the author.
the detective and controversial side of this book proved underwhelming despite coming to a head (I felt a little sorry for the JDS under interrogation)
that said, does the man's almost unrivalled talent excuse his early arrogance? in his case (as in many) grandeur often follows irrational expectations...

his myth partly exposed, although some remains, I'll likely re-read more Salinger separating the author from the writing... it's what he would have wanted

Mediocre.

2.5 stars
this was my sole venture into the realm of reading non-fiction for fun

1.5 stars

If you're looking for a decent biography on Salinger, I wouldn't recommend this one. Hamilton does a reasonable job of exploring Salinger's life, writing and career, but it's the tone of the book that I disliked for three reasons.

1. Hamilton starts the book of by detailing how much of a private individual Salinger is, then shrugs it off by saying more or less 'why does he think he's so fucking special to deserve privacy'. Which wouldn't be such a big deal in itself, when you become a public figure you have to expect a certain amount of scrutiny and interest. But Hamilton himself lists the numerous ways that he tries to dig up information, including contacting family members, Salinger himself, past lovers, friends, mailmen or practically anyone who might have ever had a passing acquantence with the man. Most of these people from Salinger's past refuse to talk to media so a sizeable part of the book is just supposition. From the outset Hamilton gives a portrait of a man who just wants to be left alone, then goes on to explain how he invaded every aspect of his life he possibly could.

2. There is a disrespectful vibe to the whole project, Hamilton seems to be digging for any unflattering, suspicious or scandalous information he possibly can. A biography isn't supposed to be a fawning sychophantic love fest for the subject, but the book comes across as much closer to a lurid gossip magazine than a objective biography.

3. Hamilton constantly inserts himself into the story. Hamilton talks about his alter ego who is like a private investigator who is trying to uncover the facts of Salinger's life. We hear about this alter ego throughout the book and it is a baffling addition to the book. A new chapter will start and Hamilton will be having a fictional argument with his alter ego about this or that, and I would get confused as to what the hell was going on until I remembered the stupid alter ego premise. The book is only about 220 pages long, about 30 of them cover Hamilton's plans on starting the book, 20 pages are about a copyright legal battle Hamilton has with Salinger's lawyers and we get plenty more about Hamilton in between. At least a third to half of this short biography are pointlessly about Hamilton himself rather than Salinger.

I think I'm objective in my views here, I've never been a big Salinger fan. For whatever reason Catcher in the Rye just didn't hit me like it did a lot of other people. It was interesting to learn about Salinger's life and works, I just found this book infuriating overall.

Este livro do poeta Ian Hamilton, uma tentativa de biografia de Salinger, que esbarra na dificuldade em conseguir documentos, cartas, quanto mais uma entrevista, consegue ser tão interessante e absorvente como as histórias do recluso, evasivo e escorregadio Salinger.

Best biography of JD yet.

I have a thing for J.D. Salinger and even I am not quite sure what that means. I wrote a paper about him in college that has little to recommend itself. I did append to the paper several short stories by Salinger that were published in The Saturday Evening Post in the 1940s. I painstakingly typed them out on my manual portable Hermes typewriter, probably on corraseable paper so I wouldn’t have to use white-out. The professor was not impressed. It did not jumpstart my writing or literary career.

I was also one of the millions of teenage boys who read The Catcher in the Rye. Let’s be clear, I was one of the boys wondering what it meant anyway. I have 65 GR friends and 40 of them have rated The Catcher in the Rye . Most everybody knows Holden Caulfield and many would like to know more about the author. But Salinger is not having any of it. In Search of J.D. Salinger is one of the many efforts to fill that information gap.

Hamilton wedged himself into Salinger’s private world by finding five years worth of letters that Salinger wrote to Whit Burnett, the editor of Story magazine , a well respected publication that first published one of Salinger’s early short stories. The letters were in the Whit Burnett/Story magazine files. Salinger took Hamilton to court to prevent him from using those and other similar unpublished letters in the biography. Salinger had a lot of money and had the best lawyers. The result of the court trial was that the book was substantially revised, removing any of Salinger’s own words found in private documents from the text. The chapter at the end of the book on the legal process is interesting and readable without much legalize. The author’s successful search for letters that Salinger had sent to others is impressive. He used them as best he could given his court-ordered silence on the exact wording of Salinger.

One interesting thing about the legal matter is that it was well publicized and Salinger got more presumably unwanted publicity than he had in the previous twenty years. He had to give an in person deposition, his first public appearance in some time.

With very limited direct Salinger material, Hamilton resorts to the common technique of reading the author’s work as autobiographical, trying to make connections between Salinger’s life and his stories. At times the analysis of Salinger’s famous families, first the Caulfields and then the Glasses, takes over, overwhelming any potential biographic value. However, as someone who has not yet comprehended much of Salinger’s work, I find the plot summaries and analyses to be quite interesting. And personally, I do believe that all writing is autobiographical to some extent. But there is a lot of assuming and conjecturing and inferring that must happen to turn books into biographies.

This is a relatively short book of just over two hundred pages. Although it seems to cover every observed incident of Salinger leaving his rural home to go to the grocery store or the post office, our picture of the author remains fuzzy. Salinger married twice. The first lasted only briefly and the second produced a son and a daughter. The daughter  Margaret Salinger  wrote a book in 2000 that is rated 3.27 on GR.

Other books about Salinger that I have on my bookshelf:
Salinger, A Biography
J.D. Salinger, A Life
Dream Catcher, A Memoir
At Home in the World: A Memoir

I found this book readable both in writing style and in interesting content. It talked about the process of researching and writing the book since it was prohibited by a court decision from being published in its original form with excerpts from unpublished letters from Salinger to various people. The letters allowed the author to reach some conclusions about Salinger’s life and work but the supporting material could not be included. There are footnotes.

With some regret I am giving In Search of J.D. Salinger three stars. It might deserve better but when I compare it with J.D. Salinger, A Life, it does not come close. I would have to read other biographies of Salinger to know better where this one fits in the pack.

I will describe this a an interesting little book. I find anything about J.D. Salinger interesting.

I used to own this but have lost it somewhere during 6 or 7 times I've moved in the last decade. This is really the only good biography of Salinger -- Paul Alexander's is all rumors and gossip, and the ones by literary critics are too hoity-toity. The final chapter is perhaps the most interesting.

A few choice quotes from the dust-jackets of the first editions of Salinger's books made me realize / reminded me just how much he actually did reveal about the autobiographical nature of his work. He actually referred to Buddy Glass as "my alter ego!"

J.D. Salinger is one weird dude. He seems like a real manipulative jerk, but I still love his writing.