Philip Hensher

Salinger, by David Shields – review

J.D. Salinger in 1952, reading from The Catcher in the Rye. Getty Images

This biography has somewhat more news value than most literary biographies. Its subject worked hard to ensure that. After 1965, J.D. Salinger, having published one novel, a volume of short stories and two pairs of novellas, withdrew permanently from public life. His last publication, a long story entitled ‘Hapworth 16, 1924’, was never printed in hard covers.

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