My Salinger Year

Full disclosure: the "boss" Joanna Rakoff describes in this book has been my agent for over 30 years. In spite of the fact I make very little money for her, she has always been supportive of me simply because she likes my writing--a fact the agent called "Max" in this memoir, who considered her an anachronism, would no doubt decry. For me, the "boss" is one of a dying breed of agents, editors and publishers who are in the business because they love writing.
And I like Rakoff's writing. She describes the publishing industry and what is happening to it well, and more importantly she allows her readers to experience her coming of age, her evolution during the year of which she writes into a strong, independent person.
She also allows us to appreciate the way Salinger--and writers like Salinger--get under our skins and help us in our our separate struggles to become fully human.
But what I abhor is the way Rakoff reveals secrets about the private life of her boss, secrets which are wholly unnecessary to her narrative and unworthy of the quality of the rest of the writing The book could have easily accomplished all the good things I mention above without those revelations. It would have been simple human decency and have demonstrated a respect for the privacy of someone who was a mentor (ironically the same respect that Salinger insisted upon) to leave those details out. Yes, they sell books, they allow a momentary little titter of recognition if the reader knows who the person is; even this review, unfortunately, will probably tempt other people to get the book. But they are unworthy of the person Joanna Rakoff seems to have striven to become in the pages of this book; they reduce the book to just another gossipy tell-all, something It did not have to be and should not have become. Shame on her.

When twentysomething Joanna Rakoff returns from graduate school in London to New York City in 1996, she's lucky enough to snare a "real job," with a literary agency (typing skills on a typewriter a plus!) and a boss who just happens to be J.D. Salinger's literary agent. Unbeknownst to the boss (who goes unnamed), Rakoff is one of the very few who has never read Salinger and thus at first thinks she's referring to Seinfield, when her boss gives her a lecture on "Jerry." Rule number one is that you always pass a call from Jerry onto the boss, and you also never, ever give out his personal details. In addition:

"He doesn't want to read your stories. He doesn't want to hear how much you loved 'Catcher in the Rye.""
"I don't have any stories," I told her half-truthfully.
"Good," she said. "Writers always make the worse assistants."

In fact, Rakoff, who goes on to publish a novel and poetry, finds that she has a knack for picking out possibilities from the slush pile and editing. But since part of her job is sending form letters to Salinger's correspondents, she becomes dissatisfied with the format, and begins to add personal touches to them. (A few she is unable to reply to for various reasons, but winds up keeping them after she leaves the agency.) She does wind up meeting "Jerry," and even having a few conversations with him, as he intends to publish his last short story "Hapworth," at the time. And - if you're like the reviewer this may make you even more envious - she gets to (briefly) meet Judy Blume.

However, the bulk of the book is about Rakoff herself, adjusting to full-fledged adulthood. Away from the job, she deals with a less than ideal boyfriend, a home without heat, debt and friends who are no longer seem to share all her interests. While this is well trod territory, as is the memorable first job, Rakoff does bring a freshness to her descriptions. Many - especially the parts about how her boss slowly comes to acknowledge the necessity of computers and (gasp) the Internet are hilarious. I doubt I could be so generous and un-snarky in her shoes. Ultimately, the lessons Rakoff learns are not in themselves unique, but it's easy to cheer her on when she does begin to mature. Upon moving at the end, she even gives her plaid skirts to Goodwill. "After all, I was not a schoolgirl anymore."

I was in Portsmouth New Hampshire and happened to park next to Riverrun Bookstore, significant to me, because of Finnegan's Wake, Joyce, and in fact there was a picture of James Joyce and Sylvia Beach inside the bookstore by the front desk. And at the very front of the bookstore were many typewriters, as we writers did once use them, all the time, or wrote in free hand. I had been thinking about JD Salinger a lot, because he became such a recluse, and how extraordinary it has been, how he left the world, following such massive and ongoing acclaim. So many rumors about him, and he has always intrigued me, for many reasons, as in, the Muse, that truly had to have been at his side, for these books, to hit, in such a huge, astounding, astonishing way, then the books themselves, a reflection of his being, his angst, his soul. Look at the cover, a typewriter and in a bookstore filled with typewriters. I had to notice this, and the little book mark that told me, someone, in this bookstore, LOVED this book. So I was drawn, and not for a moment disappointed. Another book I could not put down. A memoir that is deep, and so much about Joanna, her poetry of being, her life, her dreams, as woven through a story that takes place in an Agency that represents Salinger, and how he came to mean to her, so much… How books inform our lives. I loved this book. Others have detailed the Story in greater depth in reviews. Here is magic, and given time, I want to someday re read Salinger. The titles linger, he lingers as in his name. Salt runs through our veins. For writers, just open a vein and bleed. I think Salinger, would love this book. He liked Joanna, because he so respected poets, as for him, poetry contains deep mystic, spiritual truths. And when we built our house, I kept marveling at the cross beams, and kept writing, Raise High the Roof Beam. Carpenters! Because titles remain with me, even long after the story fades.

In 1996 author Joanna Rakoff, then twenty three, got her first proper job in New York at a very old, prestigious literary agency. She had recently returned to the States from London, where she had been studying. Now she had dreams of being a poet and, despite her parents expecting her to marry her college sweetheart, was living with Don – an aspiring novelist, socialist and, frankly, not marriage material.

This charming memoir is about growing up, as much as it is about working in publishing. Joanna is coming to terms with adult life – the worry of debt, having to pay the bills, coping with her feelings for Don and also the excitement of her new job. It is obvious that Joanna is a great lover of literature; an aspiring poet, she is hoping that working for ‘the Agency’ will lead to her exciting and involving jobs, such as reading manuscripts or dealing with authors. However, what she finds is something a little more mundane. For what appears months, she does little but type – on a typewriter. For the Agency distains modern gadgets like computers and, although there are references to “electronic books,” they are only as some kind of science fiction rumour that will never really exist in reality.

Joanna’s boss is a lady who has worked for the Agency for years and is known to have frightened off lesser assistants. However, Joanna is made of sterner stuff and, besides, she needs the money. Her boss deals with many authors, but their most famous client is J.D.Salinger, known to her boss as ‘Jerry’. Almost the first thing that Joanna is told is that she must never give out the personal details, address or phone number, of the reclusive author. Joanna has, though, never read anything by him and is, at first, slightly snobbish about his work.

This then is a year in her life – her work in the literary agency will be of great interest to book lovers everywhere. Although Salinger does not feature as heavily as the book title suggests, it is fascinating to see how everybody reacts to this mysterious presence on the end of a phone. Joanne is also intrigued by the mountain of letters that arrive for him, which she is expected to respond to with a form letter. Gradually, she begins to be involved in the work of the Agency, discovers that things are not as clear cut as they seem and makes choices about where her life is going. It is also obvious that this year touched the author of this book and I found this a poignant and moving read. Ideal for book lovers everywhere, this is both an interesting personal memoir and a glimpse into a world of publishing which has changed forever.

Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publishers, via NetGalley, for review.

I really loved Joanna Rakoff's "A Fortunate Age" and wished that she would write another book. I am so happy that she had and you can see the inspiration for her previous book. I might be the only person who hated Catcher in the Rye. I thought Holden Caulfield was a snot nosed prep school jerk. Maybe I couldn't identify with this angst ridden teenager because I hadn't experienced this kind of frustration with the world at that age. As a result of this book, I will revisit Salinger and see if his writing resonates with me as much as that of Joanna Rakoff.

Other reviews have summarized this book so I don't feel the need to replicate that effort. I think this book may have worked better if it was fictional as opposed to a memoir because one can sense how guarded Joanna was about her relationship with her parents, Don, and her college boyfriend. I too thought that it was rather troubling and disturbing how Rakoff's father sprung on her an unpaid credit card bill and a student loan that he cheerfully claimed that he forged her signature on. Somehow I feel that this is a plot device, because it eerily mimics the premise of 'Girls' and forging a signature is illegal. I went to school in the same time frame that Joanna had, maybe two years later, and there was no way that a student would not know that a loan was taken out. I had to sign tons of forms at the registrar's office.

She is similarly vague about the emotional triangle between her, Don and her college boyfriend. It is interesting to read in others' reviews that she had left her husband for this college boyfriend. In the book, he is hardly mentioned, and maybe in that time frame she did not have much contact with him, however it is obvious that he must have been a closer friend to her than he appeared in the book. Don is a very one dimensional character. It seemed that out of loyalty to her husband and family she did not delve further into Don's better points. I find it hard to believe that Don was as one dimensionally horrible as Joanna makes him out to be. Indirectly, Don must have had an amazing body considering that he was a boxer, and perhaps he had an attractive macho bravado that countered some of the sensitive artistic types that she ordinarily spent time with.

The most fascinating thing about this book is the agency and the aura of this mysterious writer that permeates the agency's business practices. Some reviewers feel that Rakoff was too liberal with revealing personal issues of both the writer and the agency editors. I was too engrossed in the story of the Agency to bother to google who the players were, however the reveals in my opinion were necessary, because had her boss not had that personal trouble, Rakoff would not have had as much contact with Salinger or his business dealings surrounding the possible publication of his story. I wish she had turned a similar revelatory eye upon herself.

The most fascinating part of this book concerned Judy Blume. I think that if there is anything that is embarrassing to the agency, the manhandling of Judy Blume's adult audience writing effort was it. I was absolutely flabbergasted that J.D. Salinger was so highly regarded and worshiped yet Judy Blume was treated as a cast off. I don't keep abreast of book sales, but considering the ubiquity of Judy Blume's books and how they are a right of passage for kids, I find it hard to believe that her overall book sales don't equal or surpass those of J.D. Salinger. My bias is obvious as I had grown up with and loved Judy Blume's books and couldn't care less for J.D. Salinger. I may change my opinion when I read his other writings.

I enjoyed reading this memoir about the author's year working for a literary agency in New York. She'd just left university in London and returned home to the US and didn't want to live at home with her family so she needed to earn enough money to support herself and stay living with her boyfriend - and keep that knowledge from her parents. She got the job as assistant to what turned out to be the head of the agency and at first she just felt she was a glorified secretary but gradually the job got a hold of her and she found it fascinating.

I thought her descriptions of office life were excellent. She highlighted something that I've come across in some offices in which I've worked - no one told her anything and unless she asked the right questions she had to struggle to work out how things were done. As you don't know what you don't know this often resulted in trial and error before she finally worked things out.

Before she went to work for the agency the author had never read J D Salinger but she soon found out that he was their most prestigious client and there was a long list of dos and don'ts when it came to dealing with him. These were the only things she was told without asking. Early on she was given the J D Salinger fan letters to deal with and a stock letter which she was told to use to reply to them. Salinger himself did not want to see his fan letters. These letters started to haunt the author and she began to reply to them individually - with mixed results.

There is something quirky and individual about this memoir and I really loved the way the author gradually came to understand things about literary life and found her original ideas about it were often totally wrong. I liked the glimpses into her home life too - the ramshackle apartment with no heating and no kitchen sink and her unsatisfactory boyfriend who was working on his novel. Recommended to anyone who enjoys biography or autobiography and anyone who is interested in learning about life in a literary agency.

Joanna Rakoff has written a delightful memoir of her time in New York as an assistant to a literary agent in a well-established old-school agency. The agency represents J.D. Salinger who is the personal client of Joanna's boss. This memoir, however, is not about Salinger, despite its title. It is about Joanna and her life as a young woman who writes poetry and is expanding the horizons of her life.

Joanna is in her early twenties and lives with her boyfriend Don, a socialist, who is working on his own novel. Despite being a graduate of a good college, Don does odd jobs for a living and does not have a career. He brings in very little money. They live in a small apartment in Manhattan that does not have any heat except for the oven, nor does it have a kitchen sink. Joanna brings in most of the money with her salary - $18,500 annually. At first, since this book takes place in the early 1990's, this might not seem like such a pittance. However, on a visit home to her parents, her father presents Joanna with a 'gift' - all the bills from the credit cards she used while in college, a bill for her student loans, and a bill for her college board and tuition. Paying all of this takes up most of Joanna's salary.

The Agency, as it is called, where Joanna works, has not yet advanced to the technological age. Instead of a computer, Joanna types on a Selectric with carbon paper, using a Dictaphone. Most of the other agencies in New York utilize email, but not Joanna's place of work. It holds steadfast to the past and to an ambiance of older times.

Joanna doesn't love Don and often thinks about her college sweetheart who resides in California. She left him and, for reasons unknown, moved in with Don, from whom she gets a minimal amount of positive intimacy. In fact, he often pays little attention to her or criticizes her for being too bourgeois. Though they spend time together, Joanna realizes that since she has moved in with Don, she no longer has her own friends who have gone by the roadside in her attempt to please Don. Don is a misanthropic sort and is not well-liked by most people. Joanna realizes that she is "slightly unhappy and constantly alone."

As we spend a little more than a year with Joanna, we learn of her dreams. I especially enjoyed the fact that she was relegated the task of answering the letters to J.D. Salinger that arrived at The Agency in box loads. Instead of using the form letter that she is supposed to, Joanna often writes personalized notes to people who are trying to reach Salinger. Though she in under strict instructions never to forward any letters to him, she answers his letters herself in a way she thinks would be representative of him.

The book is well-written and quite fascinating. The reader learns of the hoards of young college graduates trying to make it in the New York literary circle. We are privy to the parties where editors from The New Yorker mingle with literary assistants, most of whom are graduates of good colleges. Joanna realizes that it's not likely she's going to advance much in her job. However, even if she will move up the ladder, perhaps this is not her dream.

I found Joanna Rakoff's book to be utterly enchanting, but almost hard to believe that the events happened in the New York City of the 1990's -- there were times when I felt I was reading that other coming of age story of young women in New York from the 1950's entitled "The Best of Everything." And I can see it eventually being made into a movie for the big screen, although my original choice of actress to play the author, the delightful and intelligent Amy Adams, is, alas, a few years too old for the part.

As others have written, Ms Rakoff went to work for a literary agency right out of college, ending up, as her father was always reminding her, as a secretary. Referring to her as a secretary would be easy to do, as the Agency had not kept up with changes in technology, lacking an office computer, and just recently purchasing a FAX machine. Ms Rakoff was put in charge of handling the correspondence directed to the agency's number one client, J.D. Salinger, or "Jerry" as everyone there called him. Salinger did not wish to receive fan letters from his readership, and Ms Rakoff was directed to send out a form letter, typed on a Selectric typewriter, to the fan regardless of what was related in the correspondence. I do have to question if the author really had never read any of Salinger's works, especially the iconic "Catcher in the Rye," which I feel would have been assigned to her in college. But she claims that she did not, and perhaps that is why she could cast an objective eye on the fan mail, and in some cases start to write more personalized letters in response.

Much of her story is easy to relate to, even by a woman of a certain age who graduated from college years before Ms Rakoff was born. New York City was the Mecca for young women of a literary bent, and if my life had not taken a different turn, I had aspirations of going there as well. While some found it difficult to understand how such an intelligent young woman could saddle herself with a boy friend who was seemingly not worthy of her loyalty, I think she speaks for many who made poor romantic choices at that time in their life (and remember that he does have his own version of the relationship). The author does poke some gentle fun at the employees at the Agency, and some even questioned how she could reveal intimate information about her boss at a tragic point in the life of the older woman. But the author also talks about the insensitivity of her parents, who suddenly present her with huge credit card bills that they have been paying for the past few years, as well as a student loan debt that her father cheerfully admits was the result of his forging her signature on the loan documents. The off hand remarks that he makes regarding how paying off the heretofore unknown loan will improve her credit rating is certainly indicative of the mid-1990's and not the horrid reality of 2014. Part of the parental strangeness is, however, Ms Rakoff's fault, as she failed to be honest with her parents about her salary and her living arrangements with the unemployed boy friend.

I found this book to be well-written in a style suited to a memoir about the literary world. The author did not claim an intimacy with Mr Salinger that extended much beyond his phone calls, and it was admirable to me that she didn't claim to be a fan, either to her boss or to the author himself. I felt as though I were in New York City with Ms Rakoff in the descriptive language she used to describe the office, the city itself, the pathetic apartment where she lived with the boy friend, the clothing she wore (that did remind me very much of the 1950's, both the vintage clothing she purchased herself and the clothing bought for her by her mother, who remained a more shadowy figure than Mr Rakoff). The book is a fairly quick read, but you might want to go over it again with some close reading to see how the author handled more problematic issues of ethics in her performance of her duties. It certainly is a book that will stay with me for a while.

The author, Joanna Rakoff, has written a memoir of her year working for Phyllis Westberg, the President of the oldest literary agency in New York, Harold Ober Associates. In the book the literary agent and the agency are unnamed, but just google Salinger's literary agent and hundreds of articles appear.

Joanna had just returned from London, where she was working on her graduate degree, to her parent's home in New York. She needed a job and was sent by an agency for an interview at Harold Ober Associates. The job of assistant to the president was offered to her. She was working in the beginning of the age of the internet, 1996, however her firm was old and antiquated. Typewriters not computers, dictaphones not email, and low lights. Her job to begin with was to transcribe her boss's letters from the dictaphone to the typewriter . She learned this job quickly, and then one day she was called into the office and a discussion of 'Jerry' ensued. She was not to discuss him, not to talk to him on the phone but to immediately transfer him to her boss. She was never to call or write him. She agreed to every word, while not knowing who Jerry was. She finally realized it was J. D. Salinger, the client who really ran her boss's business.

At the time Joanna was living in Brooklyn, with a new boyfriend, Don, who I quickly came to realize was not really kind nor caring. Their apartment was very small with no kitchen sink or form of heating. Joanna was living on a very tight budget, her parents had helped with her finances while she was in college, now she was on her own. We follow her as she eats lettuce salads, coffee and whatever cheap lunch she could afford. We follow her through the streets of New York as she describes the old buildings, the happenings of the late 90's and the clothes of the time.

As Joanna is discovering herself, she is discovering J.D. Salinger, and what he means to the literary world and to the public at large. She had never read his books, now she read everyone. Part of her job was to read the fan mail of Salinger and to send a reply. She used a stock company letter:

"Dear
Many thanks for your recent letter to J.D. Salinger. As you may know, Mr. Salinger does not wish to receive mail from his readers. Thus, we cannot pass your kind note on to him. We thank you for you interest in Mr. Salinger's books.

Best,
The Agency"

She often added her own sentences if the letter was interesting. At the same time, Joanna was involved in the publication of another Salinger novel. This is an intriguing part of the business, and, as we learn, the book business is a very difficult one, and a literary agent is a necessity.

This is a book about a literary agency, J.D. Salinger, but most of the book is about Joanna, and her emergence into her new life. Joanna wanting a life writing poetry turns into a writer extraordinaire. This is a funny book at times that touches on the bittersweet. Joanna Rakoff has turned her year as a production assistant into a coming of age, page turner. So well written, that I read it at one sitting. This memoir has a lot going for it, whether you are a Salinger fan or not, this is a book well worth your time.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 04-26-14

"My Salinger Year" (2014 hard cover; 2015 paperback; 262 pages) is a memoir from writer Joanna Rakoff on her one year stint in 1996, at age 24, at a literary agency in New York. As it happens, the biggest client of Joanna's boss, who runs the Agency as if it's 1956 rather than 1996, is none other than J.D. "Jerry" Salinger. Among Joanna's tasks is to respond to the multitude of fan mail, which upon Salinger's instructions is not forwarded to him under any circumstances. Instead Joanna is to respond with a form letter. Joanna is tempted to provide a more substantive response to some of the letters. Will she do so? To tell you more would spoil your reading pleasure, you'll just have to find out for yourself how it all unfolds.

Couple of comments: fist, I picked up this book without knowing little or anything about it, and as it turns out for the wrong reason (namely thinking that somehow Joanna would become personally involved with Salinger). But a funny thing happened as I started reading this: while there are some connections with Salinger, they are secondary to the overall tone of the memoir, which really is about how a 24 year old young woman starts building her professional career while at the same time figuring out her personal life. "This was 1996. The country was in the grips of a recession. Almost no one I knew was gainfully employed." Later on, Joanna comments: "I didn't want to be normal. I wanted to be extraordinary. I wanted to write novels and make films and speak ten languages and travel around the world." The key story line in the book centers around Joanna's relationship with her live-in boyfriend Don, 7 years her senior and a wanna-be writer himself. Joanna's writing style is smooth and I found myself turning the pages with great anticipation how all of this would play out.

One of the questions that came up for me was: why now? Why did Joanna wait almost 2 decades to write this book? I'm speculating that part of it had to do with Salinger's passing away in 2010, and that she now felt it would be appropriate to write about her Salinger experiences from 1996. If that is the case, and given the passage of time, I applaud the author's restraint, rather than being upset by her writing about this at all, as some reviewers seem to be. Regardless of the merits of that debate one way or another, one thing cannot be denied, namely that Joanna Rakoff is a talented writer and with "My Salinger Year", she has given us an insightful and entertaining memoir. "My Salinger Year" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

My Salinger Year began in 2010 as a short magazine piece, that should have stayed a magazine piece. There isn't enough here for a book. With that said, the writing is excellent and Rakoff does an excellent job of describing all the young New York hopefuls slogging their way to work in the morning and carrying their dreams on their shoulders. The description of "The Agency" the book agent she worked for is outstanding. She conjures up an anachronistic timepiece.

This book can be described as a Bildensgrunroman but the author never grows up. She continues to suck on the teat of her privileged family into her 40's. Therefore the entire book comes off as inauthentic - think a combination of The Devil Wears Prada and Nickel and Dimed - Not Making it in America (where the author journalist goes under cover to shadow the lives of those who really have not money). Rakoff's immaturity and dependence on her mommy and daddy and her final juvenile slap in her former boss by the revelation of personal information that does not add value to the narrative further but only portrays the author's lack of empathy and understanding that these are real people she's describing, not characters.

Rakoff tells us she was living as a graduate student supported by her parents in Europe with the world's best boyfriend that she unaccountably breaks up with. She goes home to New York, where her mommy continues to shop for clothes for her and ala Lena Dunham lives with an emotionally abusive boyfriend in a run down shack in Brooklyn -- just to see, I suppose. Although her daddy hands her, her credit card bills, we know that Daddy still has her back, because she never explains how she manages to pay rent, her credit card bills and her student loans all on an assistant's salary. The reader gets the sense that Rakoff is play acting in this life, working at "The Agency" with the plan to report on it in the future. Without true explanation,or other means of support, little Ms. Rakoff with her um's and "I am so pretty's" just walks off the job.

Apparently, she lands on her feet. Still a baby though. Still living off the family for awhile in a family owned apartment. A recent article on Rakoff shows she continues to live as she feels - leaving her husband and getting back together with a college boyfriend. In another interview she's asked what she thinks her former boss might feel about how she's portrayed -- and the answer.... check it out for yourself. Speaking of checking it out -- if you must read this book, save your money and check it out of the library.

Joanna Rakoff writes an engaging description of the year she spent working in the publishing industry at a time when the transition from the stodgy carpeted offices of that business was to give way to the more egalitarian (actually, not all that egalitarian) electronic world of publishing.

Joanna Rakoff's encounters with Salinger are probably as close anyone who was not an intimate of Salinger would ever come. She does a great job illustrating how the public and private sides of one of the great figures of American literature play out in a world that blurs that distinction. I particularly like how Rakoff interacts with the constant flow of letters of those wanting Salinger to solve, or at least respond to the dilemmas and conflicts of their lives. A compassionate person comes out of her responses to those letters in a way that humanizes the story.

In terms of Joanna Rakoff's discussion of her personal life while working at the publishing agency... well, again, the fight to survive in the complex and costly environment of New York City comes through in a very engaging way.

I did not purchase this book at the store, but rather read it by way of the store Kindle through a library loan.

I know this book has rave reviews, but something about it really bothered me. Two things, actually.

One is that it seems too soon. Writing about millenials is like writing about last week, not that long ago. There isn't the distance needed to really see what the culture changes and lifestyles meant as it really still is in cycle. Fifty years from now, it may be more fascinating. It just feels too new, and it feels like the author is far more fascinated about her life than the reader...she simply doesn't have the life experience to put it all in perspective, or even have the appreciation for an author like JD Salinger. Again, given time, I think the voice and details will provide a more important glimpse.

The other thing is that the author name drops constantly. If I was writing a book about the 1980s, and said "So I was going to a Duran Duran concert and I bought some new Jordache jeans and grabbed my boyfriend's Members Only jacket and we stopped by the mall for an Orange Julius and headed out in my VW Rabbit and we had an awesome time with my friend Buffy." you'd think first that I wrote an awful run-on sentence (it's purely for example, the author writes much more artfully). Then you'd think, what's with all the brand names and people names? Because that's what I tired of quickly in her narration of the events of her new job. Lots of publishing houses, authors, brands of clothing, etc...it became exhausting. And lots of emphasis on the most trivial of details that overall, in a memoir, don't feel needed. In a novel they might represent foreshadowing, but in this it felt like fifty pages of minutiae could be cut.

An early scene put me off, wherein her single minded focus on her new job makes her not see the weather reports or notice the apparent blizzard and in which she sort of snidely states her people aren't the type to discuss the weather, and ends up in a train station, only then noticing the lack of commuters. It said volumes: yes, she was going to be devoted and sharp, but also insular and somewhat overly focused on her own experience. That tainted some of the other scenes.

While Rakoff writes very well, and does have an eye for a good snippet of conversation and anecdote, a few times I wished she polished up some of the paragraphs. Since it is (of course) written in the first person voice, there's a great deal of "I did..." or "I was..." and lots of "I" statements. In one paragraph it was easy to find half a dozen of these. Perhaps there could have been a way to make the same point of her experience without so many of these "I" declarations. It was unnecessarily repetitive.

I imagine wonderful things for this writer because her experiences ARE unique but her voice could use some maturity and distance to be truly reflective.

MY SALINGER YEAR is set in 1996, when twenty-four-year-old Joanna Rakoff took a job in a New York literary agency as an assistant to a dominant female boss, and discovered quite by chance that the agency represented J. D. Salinger. The book chronicles in meticulous detail the year Rakoff spent there, and how she got to know Salinger - mostly through brief telephone conversations, although she did have the opportunity to meet him once. Rakoff chronicles in great detail the huge pile of fan-mail that regularly arrived for Salinger; she was instructed to send everyone a form-letter stating that Salinger no longer wanted to receive or read any of it. However Rakoff becomes interested in some of the fan-mail writers, and attempts to answer their letters in her own way; by doing so she lays herself open to the kind of criticism from writers that the agency expressly tried to avoid. In essence, MY SALINGER YEAR is about the ways in which Salinger's work and personality affect people; not only his readers, but those associated with him (Rakoff's boss, for instance). It is evident that the boss is a Salinger-esque figure - in spite of her dominant personality at work, there is something in her life that she can never quite fulfill, a fact she only discovers to her cost when her long-time lover commits suicide. Rakoff herself undergoes a process of self-discovery; having abandoned her long-term boyfriend for Don (a would-be writer), she believes that there is something inadequate about her own life, a feeling that she can only consciously articulate after having read most of Salinger's oeuvre. From then on she understands that there is more to life than working in an agency, however much she might enjoy the job and her coworkers. As well as giving a unique insight into the power of Salinger to affect his readers, the book offers a detailed insight into the New York publishing world, where the old-style business practices of handshakes and verbal commitments (represented by Rakoff's rather old-fashiond agency) have been superseded by fierce competition and a decline in client loyalty. While Salinger remains a client of the agency, there are others - such as the novelist Judy Blume - who abandon the agency for new organizations, much to Rakoff's boss's chagrin. The book not only offers a valuable insight into Rakoff's changing state of mind as she spends her year at the agency, it contains some penetrating vignettes of her coworkers, as well as her close friends, both male and female. It offers a vivid portrait of New York's business ethic, as well as some of its most famous landmarks. Definitely worth reading.

Rakoff writes a very affecting coming of age as a young professional in New York memoir. Refreshingly it’s distinctly non whiney. She’s going through all the usual young adult tropes such as deciding what she wants to do for the rest of her life, who she wants to do it with, trying to blend in with the adult world, her first apartment, and reworking her relationship with her parents…oh and dealing with desperate finances. Rakoff’s first job was at a literary agency where she was an assistant (read secretary/gofer) to a long established though troubled agent. Her boss works with the almost cult like J.D. Salinger. Not only does the near deaf Salinger call often but his fans mail bomb the agency projecting their hopes and dreams onto Salinger and longing to become acquainted with him. Rakoff fields Salinger’s often bizarre calls and repeatedly types out the agency’s canned response to these would be correspondents. And yes I literarily mean she had to type the response because the agency doesn’t believe in using computers!

I loved the tour through New York in the ‘90’s and especially it’s literary world as well as the snippet of the inside world that was Salinger. He was/is practically his own planet. Don’t feel you have to have read all his books in order to enjoy this memoir though I’d suggest at least having read “Catcher in the Rye” but that’s not really directly relevant until the last part of the book. Rakoff hadn’t even read Salinger until she began taking his phone calls. The writing is exemplary and I was often deeply touched by Rakoff’s insights.

After watching a documentary about Salinger's life, I ordered one of his books, "Catcher in the Rye." I still haven't read it. Like Joanna Rakoff, I'd heard about this author, but somehow reading it in my teen years escaped me. Still intrigued with Salinger...I wanted to see what Rakoff's book was all about.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, "My Salinger Year." She writes about a time in her life when she was fresh out of college and took a job at a publishing company called, The Agency. The office was slowly trying to come into the modern age when Rakoff was hired in the 1990's as an assistant. She really didn't know what she was getting in to, but knew she wanted to be a writer and she needed a job. This job seemed like a good choice.

It's also about growing up, making choices, and becoming a responsible adult. Something we can all relate to going through. It would probably be helpful to read some of Salinger's work, if not all of it, before reading this book. I think it would give a better perspective to the book. I'm off to read Salinger now. Highly Recommended.

Summary:
This is a memoir of a young Joanna Rakoff who landed a job right out of graduate school working for the literary agent for J.D. Salinger. Among finding manuscripts and editing, part of her job is to respond to Salinger's fan mail. The agency has developed a form letter for this, but she quickly discards this and begins to write the fan's back as if she is Salinger. While doing this, she finds that she has a voice as well. Through the experience, she finds herself immersed in Salinger's writing and finding herself in the process.

My thoughts:
This was an excellent read. It is a true coming of age story about Rakoff developing into an author herself. Since writing letters was a chance for her to find connection through words, she decides that she really doesn't want to work with a literary agent. She wants the words being read to really come from her own writing. Along with this, she develops a love of Salinger that both challenges and enriches her life. It's a good chance for us to remind ourselves about how Salinger touched each one of us as readers, and to cheer Rakoff on as she perfects her craft.

This book works on some levels. As a little slice of life story about a young, poor writer/poet attempting to find her way in the New York literary world, it was interesting. As a glimpse into an old-school literary agency, it was also interesting. But there are other aspects that are complete turnoffs regarding both the story and Rakoff herself.

First, most obviously, she betrays Salinger. A strong word, perhaps, but I think it is warranted. Salinger was an extremely, drastically, notoriously private person. Rakoff was employed by his literary agency, which worked very hard to protect his privacy. Confidentiality certainly would have been expected. For Rakoff, who worked within that realm of confidentiality, to now write a little tell-all book about her interactions with Salinger while she was working at the agency is truly unethical. That is nearly akin to a paralegal writing a book about her interactions with a client of her law firm. Rakoff really should be ashamed of herself.

Second, Rakoff doesn't write about Salinger from some historic sense of adding to our understanding of the great writer. No, she does so simply to inflate herself, to put herself in juxtaposition to Salinger in order to generate a little fame by glomming on to his. How saleable would her book have been without his name attached? Yeah, you get the picture.

Third, her relationship with Don is nearly repulsive, and completely incomprehensible. A reader never has any sense whatsoever of what she is doing with him. Near the beginning, she mentions that they are attracted to each other. So? Any given person will meet many people to whom he/she is attracted. That doesn't mean the person should jump into a long-term relationship based solely on that attraction. And if there was more than physical attraction between Don and Rakoff, we never get the faintest hint of what it might have been. The scenes between them cause a reader to cringe.

Fourth, Rakoff, even as she gets older, apparently was and is very immature. She dumps her college boyfriend, whom she claims to love, and shacks up with Don, while still claiming to be in love with the (ex) boyfriend. She later marries a third guy and has two kids with him, and then she dumps him to reunite with the college boyfriend. This last occurred when she was about 40 years old. I feel sorry for the kids.

I really enjoyed My Salinger Year. It was peripherally about J.D. Salinger, reclusive author of The Catcher in The Rye, but it was in no way similar to Salinger's style of writing. Which is not to say it wasn't good in its own way, and who wants an ersatz Salinger anyhow?
As the story begins, Joanna Rakoff, the author, is a recently graduated English Major. She's widely read--but had not read any Salinger! Had avoided him, in fact, assuming that it would be silly and not up to her high standards of literary achievement!
She lands a job as an assistant to a Literary Agent whose biggest client is J.D. Salinger, and one of her duties becomes reading the voluminous fan mail for J.D. Salinger, and sending out form letters explaining that he has asked that no mail be forwarded to him under any circumstances whatsoever. She is also admonished not to engage Jerry in conversation or try to push her own writing on him. Jerry, she soon comes to realize, is J.D. Salinger.
Joanna Rakoff's book reminded me of The Devil Wears Prada as a story about an assistant to a high powered professional who learns that her boss, though brilliant and successful, is actually only all too human, with certain lacunae and weaknesses. The Agency that she works for is also incredibly old-fashioned, which plays well for old school clients like Jerry, but cumbersome and Luddite in the fast encroaching digital age. They are losing clients left and right.
Another subplot is Rakoff's boyfriend, Don. He is an aspiring novelist and a boxer, with half baked political beliefs. Their relationship turns out to be the weakest part of the book. It is like you know she is going to dump him and is just building a paper trail like she's the HR Department. There is no suspense and also you don't entirely trust her verisimilitude. This book read like a novel, but was actually a memoir, so objectivity goes right out the window when discussing your exes. I get that.
I saw The Jane Austen Book Club and it was pretty good film. It was better than the film about Jane Austen, called Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway. The Book Club didn't try to be all Pride and Prejudice but just used her books and the strong feelings they inspired as a launching pad. So too, Rakoff in My Salinger Year didn't try to be all Holden Caulfield and catch you in the rye, but told a story of the New York publishing world and her apprenticeship in that milieu, with the strongest scenes being about her discovery of the writing of J.D. Salinger, and what his writing meant for so many people, herself included.

I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. I was a little leery before I read it because I knew it was more about the author than Salinger but Rakoff writes a very interesting story about herself as a young college graduate starting her life and career in NYC and trying to survive on a secretary's salary in a city where rents are so astronomical that she ended up living with her boyfriend in a dumpy apartment with no kitchen sink (they washed dishes in the bathtub) and no heat! (they just turned the oven on). I so enjoyed reading about her struggles and accomplishments that I would have given the book 5 stars except that I wanted more details about her dumping her creepy abusive boyfriend. She kind of skimmed by that part and I was looking forward to it. But overall it was very well written and a lot of interesting stuff about living in New York and the publishing world.

Soon after graduating from college, the author got a job as assistant to an agent (who seemed not to accept unsolicited queries from authors) who represented, among others, J.D. Salinger whose publisher was Little, Brown. This was in 1996. Salinger was in his seventies at that time. The author's job was essentially to be a secretary at a time when the agency and agent had not yet embraced computers, copy machines, and other modern devices. She mostly typed letters, handled correspondence (including fan mail to Salinger), and drew up contracts based on templates she was given. Her contact with Salinger consisted of a number of phone calls by him to the agent that involved some superficial friendly banter. She also saw him once when he visited the office to discuss a possible deal to create a book out of a long short story. Amazingly she had never read anything by Salinger when she took the job (despite being a voracious reader) and waited 8 months after taking the job to read his books (all of which she liked because they made her cry). The job and dealings with Salinger are described along with her life as a single woman and occasional poet living in Brooklyn with a boyfriend she didn't especially like while fantasizing about an old boyfriend she very much liked but couldn't seem to get together with (possibly because he lived in California, not Brooklyn, and she liked the New York vibe).
The book reads well and is pretty fast-paced. It probably gives an accurate portrayal of an aspect of the world of publishing in New York as absorbed by a young assistant who loves being part of big-time publishing albeit on the periphery. She accepts, for instance, the ideas of her boss and higher status colleagues that nothing good comes through the slush pile, that the system somehow finds and promotes worthy writing, that everything is fair, and that the system is good. So her attitude is fairly conservative regarding how publishing works. Also she doesn't much reflect on (let alone critically comment on) Salinger's attitudes and persona. He is the agency's golden boy--that is enough for her. She respects all the rules her boss hands down about how to treat him and how to handle correspondence directed to him. She never questions why he wrote the one book that resonated deeply, got a lot of credit for other books because of the after-glow that came from the one, never really did much writing at all, lived in a small town in New Hampshire, and shunned publicity. Why not think about all of that and formulate some theories rather than shy away from thinking about Salinger at all in deference to the wishes of her boss?

I really enjoyed this book, but it wasn't anything close to what was described. The author has a knack for capturing the details that make you picture this job she has at an agency, the people she works with, and how her own personal details make this story unique. It really, in my opinion, has nothing to do with Salinger. Sure, he calls in. The agency represents him. But the story stands on its own, completely separate from him.

If I had one criticism, it was the way the story ended. Toward the end the first-person narrative seems to change, aimed directly at the reader, and I found this jarring after reading a book where the voice had been slightly different (and more enjoyable). The end seemed rushed, as if after this slow burn at the agency office there was nowhere to go after that. But even with this detail, it was an enjoyable read.

Joanna Rakoff is talented and she writes well. So I found bits of her account of the life of a wannabe literary agent in 1990s New York were enjoyable and informative. The professional Joanna is thoughtful, hardworking and diligent, but her own representation of her personal life is less effective. Attempts at humour in describing her housing struggles quickly descend into slapstick and her accounts of relationships be it with parents, boyfriends or acquaintances are equally ham-handed. It is almost as if she is writing about two completely different people. The result is a curious mixture which is interesting, but not memorable

Joanna Rakoff's writing style makes this a fast-paced read. Even the most minute details are rendered interesting. The reader gets a glimpse into a literary world inhabited by a rather old-fashioned agency reluctant to adapt to modern conveniences. People are still using Dictaphones and typewriters, for goodness' sake. It is no wonder then that the reclusive author J.D. Salinger feels at home with this agency. Rakoff is the assistant to Salinger's literary agent, and her year of working at this agency, her experiences with the author, and her exposure to Salinger's body of work leads her on a path of self-discovery. If you're looking for a bio of Salinger this isn't it, but it is entertaining and will make you want to revisit or discover Salinger's works.

Even if the author did not have slight contact with JD Salinger, this would be an interesting book.
If nothing else it is an exploration of this time of the author’s life; from the anachronistic office she worked in, to the penny-pinching parents, to the socialist boyfriend. The only thing that struck me in all of this as off, was the emotional flatness. Even though her employer expected servitude and was cavalier about their treatment of her, I never sensed an emotional response in the author’s writing. Similarly even with her surprise at her parents handling of her college finances and her boyfriends potential philandering. It just felt flat. Knowing how hormones are raging at those time, I can only assume that time (as the author’s is years past this time frame) and hindsight took out the sting.

Similar to the author when she initially took the job, who had never read Salinger’s work, I have not either, so I understand her feeling of missing out on “what the big deal is”. It is clear after she read Salinger’s work she understood the fan mail more. Funny how the thoughts of strangers can drag you in. I found her attempts to respond to the fan mail laudable, but as a colleague cautioned it can be consuming.

Overall this is an interesting book. It shows how many of us when young will allow poor treatment from employers to peers and even landladies out of ignorance. Often we are surprised that someone would do such a thing, so accept that is the way the world works. On that note, her writing resonated with me. That first job is such a learning experience and we all take it so seriously.

The fan mail, also shows how many people out there are looking for answers and understanding. Books can resonate with people and become very personal and JD Salinger apparently had a knack of touching the nerve of many, hence his appeal. From the author’s interaction with him and his peculiarities it would seem he was a rather disenfranchised person himself. It might explain how he could craft books the people on the fringes related to so well. They were like him

Despite the title, this book only peripherally touches on the reclusive and now deceased author J.D. Salinger. It really is an interesting coming-of-age story that lands author Joanna Rakoff in her first real post-college job at J.D. Salinger's NYC literary agent. On top of dealing with personal stuff such as her less-than-motivated boyfriend, issues regarding money with her parents, and her miserably low paying salary, Joanna is dealing with a less than ideal world that makes IBM Selectrics seem high tech because the literary agency operates in decidedly low tech mode. Her job? Kind of ghosting for Salinger as she tends to his correspondence and takes a lot of guff as the new kid in the office. In the process of ghosting Jerry Salinger, she starts wondering about Salinger and his work and why he has this almost obsessive following.
Told with humor, if you were not one of the fortunate ones you will remember your first miserable job as a grunt and the baby steps taken to forge ahead and move up in the world, you probably will relate.
I liked this book because it was laced with humor and grace that I related to. In some ways it paralleled my first job where I experienced some distant celebrity encounters while still being a grunt of the first order. Well told and by title alone somewhat intriguing, this is a good summer read.

Joanna Rakoff's book is not specifically about J.D.Salinger. It is about her work and life - a year at an old fashioned literary agency during the 1990's. She does bring in her private side, where wonders at her admitted longing for a former boyfriend, while living with one who did not seem to have too many endearing qualities.

We see the difficulties of living on a low salary in New York City and are also witness to her father presenting her with credit card bills she was led to believe they were paying and student loans for her education with her signature forged by her father. She does not elaborate on how this entire financial burden was overcome. Her passivity regarding this and her boyfriend at that time can bother one, especially when a landlord installs a faulty heater which leaves the building reeking with gas in an apartment with no heat and no kitchen sink. She just shrugs all of this off.

What becomes especially fascinating is how the publishing agencies work and how Salinger was idolized and handled. Even if you are not a fan of his writing, this is still a captivating story on a point in time and an example of what he meant to the legions that read his books and stories and venerated him as someone who understood their innermost selves.

Joanna Rakoff was fortunate enough to experience the atmosphere of an old-school literary agency, one that managed to represent some of the most respected writers of the 20th century - and she did it just in the nick of time: 1996.

As recounted in her memoir "My Salinger Year," the agency and the agents were nothing like the author expected them to be. Instead of finding a high tech (well, as high as high tech was in '96, anyway), Rakoff walked into an office that still thrived on manual typewriters, carbon copies, dictaphones, and walking down the hall to speak with co-workers. These people thought that having a copy machine was too high tech to fool with and there was no way they wanted computers in the office. When they finally got a copy machine, the typists were overjoyed - but when they got one IBM computer for the entire office and were pretty much told to stay away from it, they were reminded where they worked and for whom.

Rakoff was 23 years old in 1996 when she found herself working for J.D. Salinger's agent, and her encounters with the man are both interesting and endearing (especially for fans of Salinger's work). She only met him one time, as I recall, but had numerous phone conversations with the hard-of-hearing Salinger during which he shouted into the phone at her.

Joanna Rakoff grew into her job. She was little more than a secretary (1950s-style) when she started at the agency but, by the time she left just a year later, she had sold a story on her own and identified a new client for the agency via a manuscript she plucked from the company slush pile. But, ultimately, Rakoff decided to move on with her life - one in which she finally shed an anvil of a boyfriend, married and had a couple of children, divorced, and finally joined the college boyfriend she pined for throughout the length of "My Salinger Year."

Avid readers will enjoy this insider's look at a New York literary agency as seen through the eyes of someone fresh from school. It is one of the better books-on-books of 2014.

Joanna Rakoff's "My Salinger Year" will give literature lovers a serious case of book envy. Joanna Rakoff nabs a job at the literary agent of J.D. Salinger. The novelist is intensely private and doesn't want to She's never read a word by Salinger, but ends up learning about him through letters and one meeting. Eventually, Rakoff ends up reading all of Salinger's works. Rakoff also speak sabout her life, relationships and journey to becoming a writer. Recommended.

This book is amazing!. My husband is an author and our public relations firm promotes books and authors, so I really wanted Joanna's take on what it was like working in a New York literary agency. The book's writing is simple, powerful, and intimate - very similar to J.D. Salinger's style, and I felt like Salinger would really have gotten a kick out of Rakoff's book. The juxtaposition of Joanna's work, love, and wonder make this a book to cherish. I look forward to reading more of the author's work.

MY SALINGER YEAR - I suppose that, with the possible exception of the name KENNEDY, the surname name SALINGER in the title of a book is the most sure-fire method of catching a reader's eye. It worked on me, and I'm glad it did. Joanna Rakoff's memoir of her year working in a stodgy, old-style literary agency in New York is engaging and thought provoking. Lots of insight into an publishing world and enough tidbits about `Jerry' to lubricate, but not satisfy, that particular thirst. Reading the accounts of Salinger's voluminous fan mail and the impact his writing had on the senders was an unexpected bonus, giving an almost narcissistic pleasure.

But beyond Salinger bits and the New York publishing world, the book gives an interesting perspective on a young women, old enough to have a graduate degree and a job, and just mature enough to be hiding from her parents the fact that she is living with her new, casual boyfriend, who comes across as a one-dimensional lout. His importance in the memoir is likely the same as his importance in her life - the flaws in that relationship paint an unflattering portrait of a contemporary, adult young woman, searching for her own identity.

There a few assertions I suspect are literary inventions (like the claim she had never read Salinger herself until she was well into her year at The Agency), but nothing likely to make the reader suspend belief. At the end though, I have the disquieting feeling Rakoff has disclosed less about herself than about Salinger's agent, some of which is highly personal (unrelated to Salinger or Rakoff) and seems an unnecessary invasion of privacy. If I had hired an intern, showed them the ropes, then been burned in a tell-all that went out of its way to disclose my innermost secrets, I;d feel stabbed in the back. So this loses a few stars from me.

Those points aside, MY SALINGER YEAR deserves kudos for telling a story well, and reminding readers why they liked Salinger in the first place. I'm willing to bet most who read it will soon enjoy the added bonus of pulling out NINE SHORT STORIES, RAISE HIGH or CATCHER and marvel over them once again.

Four stars before loss of two points!

This book reminded me of being young and that massive feeling of “anything’s possible” that you feel in your early twenties. Life is just starting and your mind is wide open to experiences. I’ve never lived in New York but having read this book, I feel like I have been. At least my mind has traveled there.

This book is NOT about Salinger. This is not bad or good, but it just is what it is. It appears to me that it was a way to garner interest. Perhaps the authors years in the publishing world served her well because I know few people in the reading blog world that are not talking about this, reading this or discussing this book. So that aspect has worked in her favor. However, I was glad it wasn’t about Salinger because quite frankly I’m not a fan of that recluse.

I really found her workplace to be divinely interesting and comically entertaining.

An enjoyable memoir about the author's experiences as an assistant in the office of an archaic literary agency in New York. Rakoff paints a convincing portrait of an old-fashioned agency struggling to remain relevant. I loved the descriptions of the dark office with its heavy furniture and eccentric characters.

While many will read this because of the Salinger connection I found the insights into life in New York for a middle-class, college educated young woman trying to make her way at the dawn of the digital era to be more compelling. This is an interesting social history and an entertaining, absorbing read. The parallels between Rakoff's life and some of Salinger's themes were nicely done.

Note to reader: This is NOT another memoir about a woman who lived with J.D. Salinger. Thank GOD! It's a wonderful memoir of getting started in the publishing and literary world. It's a memoir about starting a career in Manhattan, in a world that is so financially beyond the reach of most recent college graduates. It exposes the income and class disparity in the city, as well as dying (or at least drastically changing) literary world. So why the mention of J.D. Salinger in the title? The author of the memoir worked for J.D. Salinger's literary agent in the late 90s, and she was tasked with responding to his fan mail. The unique experience made for an interesting work life as well as a fascinating perspective on the way Salinger and his work affected people--especially Rakoff herself. The memoir is definitely and squarely about Joanna Rakoff--so the title is actually a bit misleading. But it provides a new and fascinating perspective on one of the most elusive authors in history.

I enjoy memoirs with a specific time frame. The year this young woman spent working in a quirky, Luddite publicist's office in the 90's changed her life to be kinder to herself and tolerate her circumstances. A fast-can't-put-it-down sort of read. Excellent writing that I hated to finish.

I absolutely loved this memoir of the author's year spent in book publishing in the late nineties. The understated humor and wry point of view of a 23-year-old trying to get by on a shoestring salary in the late 1990s brought up so many memories of my own early years in book publishing. The depiction of the literary agency where Rakoff worked, as well as of her boss and colleagues, is spot-on. Her responses to Salinger's fan letters as well as calls from the enigmatic author himself are alternately hilarious and moving. I highly recommend this book for anyone who's a fan of Catcher in the Rye; for readers who want a glimpse into book publishing in the pre-digital era; and for anyone who likes losing themselves in a fabulous memoir. (less)

This isn't really about Salinger. It's the author's story of working for Salinger's agent. As such, it's highly readable and enjoyable. While there is a slight insight into Salinger himself, it gives mainly an insight in working for an agency. As such, I definitely recommend this.

The title is misleading. You would think based on the title that the author would have had a good
amount of contact with Salinger and would have had lots of personal insights into Salinger. But,
you really don't hear much about him until close to half-way through the book. Most of the book
deals with her relationship with her boyfriend and what its like to work for a literary agent. She only
meets Salinger once and has several telephone conversations with Salinger. I thought I'd find out
a lot more about Salinger than I did.

Here, author Joanna Rakoff, who has found a place on the literary scene in the past decade or so, returns for her subject matter to her early-20s dead-end job at a somewhat stuffy, highly traditional literary agency. The agency, which is not named but whose identity is easy to ascertain, represents J.D. Salinger among others. This book is partly a memoir of growing up, partly a reflection on changed times in the literary world, and partly a chronicle of Rakoff's contact with Salinger and with his work.

The book succeeds when it focuses on Salinger, the notoriously reclusive and (of course) iconic novelist. Rakoff's complex feelings about the author and his work are beautifully depicted, and the reader finishes the book with a sense of completeness. Many of the details about apartments, boyfriends, parties, etc. in New York in the 90s are pretty unmemorable.

i really thought this book was going to primarily be about the author's interaction with J.D. Salinger, but it wasn't. Yes, there was some of that but it was more a memoir about what it was like to briefly work for an "old" publishing firm. it was nostalgic if you worked anytime between the late 1970's up until the internet age. the author intertwining her personal and work life flowed nicely. It read like an historical novel which i really like. Read it!

This story provides some interesting observations about the author J.D. Salinger by a person in a unique position to witness them as that person is developing and maturing into a young author herself.

This is wonderful, generous book with a smart, insightful, and sincere character (author) at its heart. It's rare to find a story so well and gently drawn about the delicate transition into adulthood after college. And it made me go to the bookstore to find all the Salingers there were!

Back in 1996, Joanna Rakoff, a literature grad and unpublished poet started a job as an agent's assistant at a prestigious, old fashioned, literary agent, styled in this book as simply `The Agency' At the time she started, the internet was a wee infant, but computers were common, and the tyranny of peremptory, unnecessary emails were already a problem. As a friend already within the publishing world said to her:

"Well, we're going to do everything by email. No more interoffice memos" She pointed to her desk. "It's driving me insane. Every two seconds I get ten new emails about NOTHING......But what's really driving me crazy is that no one talks to each other anymore. At All...........my boss is just right there" - she pointed across the room - "but instead of getting up, walking the fifteen feet over to my desk.....she emails me, from across the room!"

Well, quite.

But Rakoff's office was barely into the latter half of the twentieth century. Typing was carried out on manual typewriters, using carbons, though a recent entrant to modern technology was a copier, and in revolutionary fashion they had even moved from telex machines to faxes.

This was no ordinary literary agency though. They represented the famously reclusive J.D.Salinger. And Salinger did not engage with technology.

Rakoff's instructions were also that she must never never engage with, and certainly never instigate engagement with Salinger; the handle-with-kid-gloves author, hugely admired, hugely instrumental, hugely pursued by a fan base for over 30 years, was the property of her never named boss. Rakoff's task was initially that of filing clark, secretary - and sending out of form letters to the hundreds of fans writing to Salinger, care of his publishers, who forwarded all such mail directly to The Agency. The form letters basically said, thanks, but Mr Salinger has requested that mail should not be forwarded to him, so we are unable to forward your letter.

Except that Rakoff, living in an unheated tenement building without a kitchen sink with her distinctly self-obsessed, chip-on-the-shoulder, wannabe writer boyfriend, began to get drawn in to many of the fan letters, which came from elderly Second World War veterans as well as darkly troubled adolescents, for whom Holden Caulfield, Catcher In The Rye's iconic tortured adolescent, touched, or continued to touch, their souls. Women also wrote confessional letters to Salinger, not just about Caulfield, but about Frannie (Frannie and Zooey) and other members of the Glass family. Salinger's writing seemed to mainline into the psyche.

This account of her year in `The Agency' is about writing, the power of literature, the changing nature of publishing - the nurturing of an author, the careful placing of an author with a publisher through a one-by-one submission to a targeted publisher, only sending on to the next when the first rejected it - was already changing to the hyped `bidding war' which is the way things now work. Books as commodities. It is also of course about Salinger, and eventually about Rakoff's own relationship to his writing, as it is not until nearly the end of her time in `The Agency' that she subsumes herself into his writing. And this changes much in her own attitude to herself, her life, her ambitions, her relationships with friends and lovers, past and present.

So this is also, very much a book about the power of literature to transform, shake, insinuate and alchemically start chain reactions in lives:

"...great .writers and editors who cared deeply about words, language, story, which was another way of simply being engaged with the world, of trying to make sense of the world, rather than retreating from it, trying to place an artificial order on the messy stuff of life"

The strange wonder of powerful writing, engaged in like some act of reflective devotion, and then, sent out, as on the wind, to find some home with unknown readers who in turn receive this revelation and transformation. Literature not as `escape', literature as engagement.

And Rakoff herself, by turns confused, distraught, impassioned, intrigued, wryly self-observant, writes her Salinger Year most beautifully and entrancingly.

I received it as a review copy from the publishers. Once I started reading, I resented interruption, and will now source more of Rakoff's writing. And, yes, absolutely of course, a Salinger re-read is absolutely on the cards.

Writers on writing who send you with renewed energy back to immersive reading are writers who fan the flame of literature into a blaze.