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Summary: hey, she can write whatever she wants.
Review: I don't have a problem with Maynard talking about Salinger -- it was her life, too, and she's entitled to chronicle that. After I finished this book, I felt profoundly sorry for Joyce Maynard. Her parents screwed her up royally, and she never has had the introspective qualities needed to transcend it. I give her credit for saying that she is a "journeyman" -- no one ever claimed she was a genius, so why are so many people dumping on her, anyway?
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Summary: Refreshingly honest and beautifully written.
Review: I read Joyce Maynard's remarkable memoir in one sitting. I was impressed by her graceful writing style and her willingness to be frank and honest about the most intimate details of her life. I have been surprised and disappointed by the reviews and features that AT HOME IN THE WORLD has received to date -- all focusing on Salinger, all critical of her willingness to be brutally frank about a relationship that has had such a tremendous impact on her life. This is not only a recounting of Ms. Maynard's life with J.D. Salinger -- it is a look at the life of a young woman growing up under the shadow of her eccentric, fiercely intelligent parents. I applaud Ms. Maynard's efforts here, and look forward to her next book.
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Summary: I don't believe a word of it.
Review: I was given this book as a birthday gift. I tried to show cheerful surprise but I remembered the name, Joyce Maynard, from a newspaper column that I found sappy, treacley, and phony. Later I found out the happy Domestic Affairs was phony and she was just trying to tell us the way she wanted it to be....Reading this book, I felt she is no more at home in the world, now, than she was nesting in domestic bliss then. There is little analysis, just repeated examples of how life has made her its victim, over and over again. Her supposed catharsis does not ring true. It all seems shallow and rushed.....as if cramming every detail in there will make us care more. The writing, yikes. It is flat and boring. She wrote an article in Yahoo magazine that has more style than this book. Too bad. I loved Growing Up Old In The Sixties, or was it called Looking Back? Whatever, she was off to an interesting start, what happened? Don't tell me Salinger because according to this book he gave her some good advice. So he dumped her. He treated her kindly, decided to break up because it wasn't right, and hey, that hapeens to a lot of us. It shouldn't destroy potential. This woman needs to do some reading to find out what real writing can be. I'd be happy to give her a reading list.
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Summary: "At Home In the World"
Review: A terrific book! A wonderfully written memior - I couldn't put it down.
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Summary: Both a woman's and writer's coming of age story
Review: Just as she did when she was 18 and wrote her autobiography, Joyce Maynard has again struck out for territory many dare not tread--the heart and home. In her revealing and endearing AT HOME IN THE WORLD, Maynard talks about what it took to get her where she is and in doing so carves the portrait of a woman content with who she is because she's dealt with where she came from. Part of the book deals with an affair Maynard engaged in as she was working on LOOKING BACK, the autobiographical piece she wrote when she was 18. The affair began when a fan wrote her a letter admonishing her to beware of fame. Touched by someone caring for her, by a parental figure who seemed (wrong assumption, it turns out) to care for who she was, she fell head first in love. The author of the letter and man with whom Maynard fell in love was notorious recluse and writer, JD Salinger. This last fact has been fodder for critics who have barely touched on the book's other and most eloquently stated and written parts. "How could she reveal his secrets?"critics challenge. The secrets are Maynard's--Salinger was just the 53 year-old-who asked to be part of her life, a most destructive part, for a time. Maynard deserves kudos for courage. If you want to read intrigue, read Ludlum and Clancy. If you want to read a woman's personal journal to a highly successful, fulfilled private and professional life, read Maynard. No one tells the truth about life better or more interestingly.
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Summary: Excellant depiction of a deluded young woman
Review: Joyce Maynard is an enormously gifted writer and this is her most honest book to date. The fact that Salinger's works have made him a much-loved author have nothing to do with the fact that he fails in human relationships. Maynard is tough on herself. She is a fighter who is growing better, as a writer and a person, every year.
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Summary: a wonderful read!
Review: First off, this isn't just a book about J. D. Salinger -- it's a book about a girl growing up in a strange and fascinating family, as she moves from an seemingly All-American household that's anything but, to the home of an All-American writer who turns out to be as strange and controlling as a priest on parole. It's a work about scars that never quite vanish, about the ways of clever seduction, men who vanish inside their own skin, women who grapple with margins, and it ultimately ends up as a parable of power and liberation. Don't let all the commentary that focuses only on Salinger fool you--as the book illustrates, blind worship comes in many forms. Instead, just read it for the story, for the lessons learned, for the joy of the prose, which culminates in the glorious last fifty pages. It's, quite simply, well written and powerful and you should buy it. Now.
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Summary: This is a book that you ought to read.
Review: If you have lived and loved, and lost from time to time, you will feel at home in Joyce Maynard's new book, At Home in the World. In this memoir, the truth is in the details, and the reader recognizes it. The book made we weep in sadness for the promising young girl who was neither guided nor protected the way all of our daughters ought to be as they cross into womanhood. I also found myself grinding my teeth and pursing my lips shut in anger at Joyce's retelling of the way JD Salinger simply tossed her aside when he was through with her. There is no denying that a good portion of this book deals with Joyce's relationship with Salinger, and she's received much criticism for writing about this "very private" man. But I didn't have that "have I got some good gossip for your" feeling when I finished it. This is a book that could be about many powerful men and the young, naive women they steamroller. And it is about bumping up against mothers who mean well but do otherwise, alcoholic fathers who bring their own hell, and sisters who don't quite connect, either because of or in spite of their common history. It is really about a warm, compassionate woman trying to find a comfy spot where she might sit for a spell. A marriage that might shelter her, children who might embrace and return her boiling-over kind of love. Who of us can't share bits and pieces of this story? Like all good books, it touches our shared humanity, and leaves us changed.
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Summary: Why is JD Salinger's privacy so important?
Review: Approaching an attractive 19 year old who showed a marked gift for writing, acting as something of a mentor, and then turning on her -- did he really expect that that would be that? In "At Home in the World," Joyce Maynard has taken care to give an honest picture of her parents, herself, and Salinger. This is no work of revenge. In fact, it is something of a cautionary tale, a very well written one. All of the players here were misguided. But of the two central ones, Maynard and Salinger, he was the one lacking ethics. There is nothing wrong with telling such a story. And when it is told as powerfully as Maynard tells it, it deserves the prominent place it currently occupies in most bookstores.
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Summary: This book should be read with an open mind.
Review: Judging from some of the comments posted here, a number of readers already have unbudgeable opinions both about Joyce Maynard and JD Salinger's right to privacy. For open minded readers, I highly recommend "At Home in the World." I think too, that Katha Pollitt's review in last Sunday's New York Times is worth a look. She says "In our heard-it-all-before sophistication we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that while still very young Maynard was on the receiving end of quite a bit of damage from adults. If she doesn't always seem to understand her own story...maybe that shows how deep the damage went." "At Home in the World" is unsparing in its portrait of what life in this particular family felt like. And if it is also unsparing about what living nine months with JD Salinger felt like, it is never cruel. The fact is, this is an incredibly interesting story, all of it. Joyce Maynard's life is interesting. I'm glad she summoned the courage to tell the tale behind the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
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