|
 
$5.95
Used Trade Paper
Ships in 1 to 3 days
More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionseBook editionsAt Home in the World: A Memoirby Joyce Maynard
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:When it was first published in 1998, At Home in the World set off a furor in the literary world and beyond. Joyce Maynard's memoir broke a silence concerning her relationship--at age eighteen--with the famously reclusive author J.D. Salinger, then age fifty-three, who had read a story she wrote for The New York Times in her freshman year of college and sent her a letter that changed her life. With what some have viewed as shocking honesty, Maynard explores her coming of age in an alcoholic family, her mother's dream to mold her into a writer, her self-imposed exile from the world of her peers when she left Yale to live with Salinger, and her struggle to reclaim her self of sense in the crushing aftermath of his dismissal of her not long after her nineteenth birthday. A quarter of a century later--having become a writer, survived the end of her marriage and the deaths of her parents, and with an eighteen-year-old daughter of her own--Maynard pays a visit to the man who broke her heart. The story she tells--of the girl she was and the woman she became--is at once devastating, inspiring, and triumphant. Joyce Maynard has been a journalist and fiction writer for many years. Her books include the novels The Usual Rules and To Die For. She currently divides her time between Northern California and Guatemala. Visit her Web site at www.joycemaynard.com. The daughter of brilliant, adoring parents, Joyce Maynard grew up writing, publishing her first book at age eighteen. But there were stories about which she could never write: her father's drinking, her mother's ambition to see Joyce succeed, and her year-long relationship, at age eighteen, with a mesmerizing man thirty-five years her elder: the legendary writer J.D. Salinger. In the spring of 1972, while a freshman at Yale, she published a cover story in The New York Times Magazine about life in the sixties, "An Eighteen-Year-Old Looks Back on Life." Among the many letters of praise, offers for writing assignments, and request for interviews was a one-page letter from Salinger, a correspondence which initiated their relationship. This memoir explores the pain and confusion of early heartbreak as well as the wisdom, redemption, and triumph acquired whenseeing her own daughter turn eighteenJoyce Maynard at last embraces the disquieting truths of her history. "Compelling . . . An earnest autobiography that, in the course of tracing the author's coming of age, delineates her first serious love affair, one that happened to be with the author of Catcher in the Rye . . . At Home in the World demonstrates a marked leap forward in maturity and emotional candor. The world-weariness affected in 'An Eighteen-Year-Old Looks Back on Life'in which Ms. Maynard presumed to speak for her generationhas been replaced by a more direct, uninflected voice . . . In fact, Ms. Maynard writes in this volume with a sort of double vision, recreating the girl and young woman she was while at the same time looking at that younger self through the retrospective lens of middle age."Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Riveting and disturbing."Katha Pollitt, The New York Times Book Review "Brilliant! At Home in the World reads like a thriller. Maynard has written a poignant, deep memoir. Wonderful, compelling, honest, and right on target."Jeffrey M. Masson, author of Dogs Never Lie About Love and When Elephants Weep "At Home in the World reads like a companion piece to Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, a study of the painful and crosswired contradictions that still plague ambitious girls."Chris Kraus, The Nation "Absorbing, funny and emotionally blistering. Clear, eloquent and unpretentious, At Home in the World demands reading for the astounding pleasure to be found in a writer who has the courage to show herself inside out."Jules Siegel, San Francisco Chronicle "Maynard has an interesting and disturbing story to tell, and she tells it simply but vividly."Marion Winik, Newsday "[A] wry, painful, engaging book."Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes Synopsis:When it was first published in 1998, At Home in the World set off a furor in the literary world and beyond. Joyce Maynard's memoir broke a silence concerning her relationship--at age eighteen--with the famously reclusive author J.D. Salinger, then age fifty-three, who had read a story she wrote for The New York Times in her freshman year of college and sent her a letter that changed her life. With what some have viewed as shocking honesty, Maynard explores her coming of age in an alcoholic family, her mother's dream to mold her into a writer, her self-imposed exile from the world of her peers when she left Yale to live with Salinger, and her struggle to reclaim her self of sense in the crushing aftermath of his dismissal of her not long after her nineteenth birthday. A quarter of a century later--having become a writer, survived the end of her marriage and the deaths of her parents, and with an eighteen-year-old daughter of her own--Maynard pays a visit to the man who broke her heart. The story she tells--of the girl she was and the woman she became--is at once devastating, inspiring, and triumphant. Synopsis:This coming-of-age memoir, which outraged some and inspired others when first released in 1998, goes beyond Maynard's writing life to explore the heartbreaks and triumphs of her life growing up with brilliant parents, who also had faults, as well as her short romance at age 18 with J.D. Salinger, a subsequent failed marriage, and her struggle to rebuild at mid-life. About the AuthorJoyce Maynard was born and raised in New Hampshire. She is the author of several books, including To Die For, Where Love Goes, Domestic Affairs, Baby Talk, and her memoir Looking Back, which she wrote at the age of eighteen. Joyce Maynard has written for many national publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Parenting and Good Housekeeping. She lives in Mill Valley, California, with her three children. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
Other books you might like
Related Aisles
|
|||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
Follow us on...
|
||||||||||
Don't Miss
