Shane Salerno

Based on eight years of exhaustive research and exclusive interviews with more than 200 people-and published in coordination with the international theatrical release of a major documentary film from the Weinstein Company-The Private War of J.D. Salinger is a global cultural event: the definitive biography of one of the most beloved and mysterious figures of the twentieth century. For more than fifty years, the ever elusive author of The Catcher in the Rye has been the subject of a relentless stream of newspaper and magazine articles as well as several biographies. Yet all of these attempts have been hampered by a fundamental lack of access and by the persistent recycling of inaccurate information. Salinger remains, astonishingly, an enigma. The complex and contradictory human being behind the myth has never been revealed. No longer. In the eight years since The Private War of J.D. Salinger was begun, and especially in the three years since Salinger''s death, the authors interviewed on five continents more than 200 people, many of whom had previously refused to go on the record about their relationship with Salinger. This oral biography offers direct eyewitness accounts from Salinger''s World War II brothers-in-arms, his family members, his close friends, his lovers, his classmates, his neighbors, his editors, his publishers, his New Yorker colleagues, and people with whom he had relationships that were secret even to his own family. Shields and Salerno illuminate most brightly the last fifty-six years of Salinger''s life: a period that, until now, had remained completely dark to biographers. Provided unprecedented access to never-before-published photographs (more than 100 throughout the book), diaries, letters, legal records, and secret documents, readers will feel they have, for the first time, gotten beyond Salinger''s meticulously built-up wall. The result is the definitive portrait of one of the most fascinating figures of the twentieth century.

An instant New York Times bestseller, this explosive biography (People) of one of the most beloved and mysterious figures of the twentieth century is as close as well ever get to being inside J.D. Salingers head (Entertainment Weekly).This revealing (TheNew York Times) and engrossing (TheWall Street Journal) oral biography, fascinating and unique (The Washington Post) and an unmitigated success (USA TODAY), has redefined our understanding of one of the most mysterious figures of the twentieth century. In nine years of work on Salinger, and especially in the years since the authors death, David Shields and Shane Salerno interviewed more than 200 people on five continents, many of whom had previously refused to go on the record about their relationship with Salinger. This oral biography offers direct eyewitness accounts from Salingers World War II brothers-in-arms, his family members, his close friends, his lovers, his classmates, his neighbors, his editors, his publishers, his New Yorker colleagues, and people with whom he had relationships that were secret even to his own family. Their intimate recollections are supported by more that 175 photos (many never seen before), diaries, legal records, and private documents that are woven throughout; in addition, appearing here for the first time, are Salingers lost lettersranging from the 1940s to 2008, revealing his intimate views on love, literature, fame, religion, war, and death, and providing a raw and revelatory self-portrait.The result is unprecedented (Associated Press), genuinely valuable (Time), and strips away the sheen of [Salingers] exceptionalism, trading in his genius for something much more real (Los Angeles Times). According to the Sunday Times of London, Salinger is a stupendous workI predict with the utmost confidence that, after this, the world will not need another Salinger biography.

La primera biografía definitiva de J. D. Salinger, una de las figuras míticas del siglo XX. El autor de El guardián entre el centeno ha sido objeto de un sinfín de artículos en periódicos y revistas,