My Salinger Year
Joanna Rakoff
Bloomsbury
R399
Pp 272
THE BLURB at the back of Joanna Rakoff?s book, My Salinger Year, says it?s a memoir. But even while the book is autobiographical, it reads like a novel.
My Salinger Year is Rakoff?s account of her first job?in a New York publishing agency as an assistant of the literary agent of writer JD Salinger. It?s 1996 and the agency, with its old-fashioned office, drunken lunches and a single computer?which the entire staff shares?is stuck in the past, in a world that is rapidly moving towards the future.
Rakoff, however, is caught up in the romance of it all. In a year that sees Salinger employ the publishing house to print a new edition of one of his lesser-known stories, Rakoff is tasked with the responsibility of answering his voluminous fan mail. In the process of writing back to the fans, she abandons the agency?s standard reply format and instead starts writing the replies herself.
This act of Rakoff proves to be a kind of catalyst for an examination of her life, friendships, career and her relationship with a rather distant lover.
However, there are times when the book seems less about the author?s self-discovery and more about her cribbing against her boyfriend?how she frequently realises that he is fragile, unsupportive and inconsistent in ideology. But that being said, My Salinger Year is a fun read and one that sees the reader cheer for Rakoff when she accomplishes her heart?s desire at the end of the book?something that doesn?t involve her boyfriend, Salinger, or even her job.
One half-expects Rakoff writing letters to Salinger?s fans to be a cute epistolary story during the course of which she would ?find herself? or even fall in love with one of Salinger?s fans. However, the letters don?t figure in the book as much as the blurb would have you believe, and neither does Salinger. My Salinger Year is more like a snapshot of a year in the author?s life. The book also occasionally lacks the drama a fiction-accustomed reader might crave.
My Salinger Year interestingly portrays the transition period for the publishing trade during the 1990s?Rakoff starts her career in an era when the industry is on the brink of being radically changed by the advent of the Internet and various other technological advancements.
While reading the book, one wonders why Rakoff?s boss and former boyfriend are always referred to as ?my boss? and ?my college boyfriend?, respectively, especially when all other characters have been named (names of a few have been changed, though, as mentioned at the beginning of the book). Pithy and funny, My Salinger Year will appeal to most book lovers.