At Home In The World: A Life With J D Salinger - Tapa blanda

"A moving reflection on being defined by a youthful relationship with a world-hating genius" (Ruth Padel Mail on Sunday)

"Many people will buy (or boycott) At Home in the World because of the Salinger material, but its real theme is that of dozens of contemporary memoirs with no famous characters: the revelation, which for some reason still packs a wallop, that lots of happy families are secretly miserable and lots of people who pass for normal are bonkers" (Katha Pollitt New York Times Book Review)

"A wry, painful, engaging book" (Frank McCourt)

"At Home in the World is not a sleazy tell-all memoir about the author's affair with a famous (and famously reclusive) man. It's actually an earnest autobiography that, in the course of tracing the author's coming of age, delineates her first serious love affair.[with] maturity and emotional candour" (Michiko Katutani New York Times)

In 1972, Joyce Maynard, an undergraduate at Yale, wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine called 'An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back on Life'. Among the hundreds of letters she received as a result, one expressed deep affection for her writing, and concern at the exploitation that she might be subjected to. The writer was J.D. Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye and famous recluse.

Their correspondence led first to friendship, and then to love, and after a few months she dropped out of college to live with him. In spite of the thirty-five year difference in their ages, she believed they would be together always - but after a year, he sent her away.

Courageous, beautifully written and affecting, this book is destined to become a classic memoir of a modern woman's life.