My Salinger Year, by Joanna Rakoff
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My Salinger Year, by Joanna Rakoff
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Keenly observed and irresistibly funny, My Salinger Year is a memoir about literary New York in the late nineties, a pre-digital world on the cusp of vanishing.After leaving graduate school to pursue her dream of becoming a poet, Joanna Rakoff takes a job as assistant to the storied literary agent for J. D. Salinger. Precariously balanced between poverty and glamour, she spends her days in a plush, wood-paneled office—where Dictaphones and typewriters still reign and agents doze after three-martini lunches—and then goes home to her threadbare Brooklyn apartment and her socialist boyfriend. Rakoff is tasked with processing Salinger’s voluminous fan mail, but as she reads the heart-wrenching letters from around the world, she becomes reluctant to send the agency’s form response and impulsively begins writing back. The results are both humorous and moving, as Rakoff, while acting as the great writer’s voice, begins to discover her own.
My Salinger Year, by Joanna Rakoff- Amazon Sales Rank: #136379 in Books
- Brand: Rakoff, Joanna
- Published on: 2015-05-12
- Released on: 2015-05-12
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.98" h x .61" w x 5.15" l, .81 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 272 pages
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, June 2014: Once upon a time, not so very long ago, there existed a world in which writers used typewriters, publishers and agents sent manuscripts (on paper!) via the U.S. Postal Service, and starry-eyed ambitious young people moved to New York to try their luck in the literary world. (Okay, so that last bit still holds true.) It was the late ‘90s when writer-to-be Joanna Rakoff got her first job in New York publishing as an assistant to the woman who represented the great reclusive author J.D. Salinger. In the winsome and meticulously observed My Salinger Year, Rakoff recounts her experiences as an earlier-era Lena Dunham-creation, complete with a ratty Brooklyn apartment, strident anti-establishment boyfriend, and big, big dreams. “We all have to start somewhere,” is how Rakoff begins her story of being young, gifted, and possessed of a coveted “editorial assistant” job that her parents (my parents, your parents, everyone’s parents) would call “secretary.” While it’s true that J.D. “Jerry” Salinger figures into the narrative--and rather sympathetically so--it’s a mistake to say he’s at the heart of it. Youth, adventure, hope, ambition, and a keen eye and ear are what make this book run; with it, Rakoff--author of the novel A Fortunate Age--takes her place among such illustrious coming-of-age-in-New-York writers as Sylvia Plath, Candace Bushnell, and, well, maybe even J.D. Salinger. --Sara Nelson
From Booklist *Starred Review* Rakoff, the author of a much praised first novel, A Fortunate Age (2009), chronicles her year working at the problematically retro New York literary agency that had been representing the reclusive, nearly deaf, and still demanding J. D. Salinger since 1942. It’s 1996, and Rakoff’s chain-smoking boss is loud and cryptic. There is no computer on the premises, and Rakoff’s nebulous responsibilities entail using an ancient Dictaphone and handling Salinger’s heart-battering fan mail—hundreds of letters from lonely, angry teens and grateful military veterans who recognize in the author one of their damaged own. A poet involved with an unsavory, wannabe novelist, Rakoff misses her far more reliable college boyfriend. She finds her low-wage job enchanting, intimidating, ludicrous, and, briefly, thrilling when Salinger pitches the agency into a tizzy by allowing a teeny-tiny press to turn “Hapworth” (1965), his last published story, into a book. As Rakoff recounts her funny and wrenching personal predicaments, she also charts the quiet battle of attrition between the values of the old publishing world, personal and impassioned, and the aggressively invasive corporate imperative. An intriguing look at the ever-fascinating Salinger and a gracefully incisive tale of love and literature, creativity and survival. --Donna Seaman
Review
“A beautifully written tribute to the way things were at the edge of the digital revolution, and to the evergreen power of literature.” —Chicago Tribune“An affecting coming-of-age memoir. . . . Rakoff wisely—and deftly—weaves her Salinger story into a broader, more universal tale about finding one’s bearings during a pivotal transitional year into real adulthood.” —The Washington Post“Charming. . . . Glamorous. . . . Rakoff does a marvelous job of capturing a cultural moment. . . . What is most admirable is [her] critical intelligence and generosity of spirit.” —The Boston Globe“The loneliness of life after college [is] perfectly explained . . . There’s something Salingeresque about her book: it’s a vivid story of innocence lost.” —Entertainment Weekly“My Salinger Year describes its author’s trip down a metaphorical rabbit hole back in 1996. She arrived not in Wonderland, but a place something like it, a New York City firm she calls only the Agency. . . . An outright tribute to the enduring power of J.D. Salinger’s work.” —Salon “A breezy memoir of being a ‘bright young assistant’ in the mid-1990s . . . Salinger himself makes a cameo appearance. . . . The ‘archaic charms’ of the Agency are comically offset by its refusal to acknowledge the Internet age.” —The New York Times Book Review“While it may be the Salinger cameo that initially draws readers in, it’s Rakoff’s effortlessly elegant, unhyperbolic prose and poignant coming-of-age story that will keep them engrossed through the very last word.” —BookPage “Moving. . . . Heartfelt. . . . Rakoff uses Salinger—his fan mail and her favorite character, Franny—to help illuminate her inner life. . . . The memoir is touching, and it’s easy to empathize with how Rakoff, like Franny, is ‘trying to figure out how to live in this world.’” —USA Today “Gentle, funny, closely observed. . . . The special unworldliness of the young literary person, who has reached adulthood without ever knowing or caring much about how the world works, is the real subject of My Salinger Year.” —Tablet Magazine “Gripping and funny. . . . An involving, evocative tale that will have bookish women everywhere shuddering in recognition. Like Rona Jaffe’s novel of the 50s, The Best of Everything, it is concerned with what it feels like to move to the big city, to take on your first job, and to struggle to survive on a tiny salary when all the while your dreams are seemingly being snuffed out at every turn, and your love life is spiraling into muddle and mayhem. . . . So raw and so true.” —The Guardian “Hard to put down. . . . Demands sympathy, admiration, and attention. . . . Irresistible.” —The Sunday Times “Intimate . . . elegant . . . graceful.” —The Sunday Telegraph “As memoirs go, this is possibly one of the year’s funniest, enthralling and entertaining . . . For an insight into old-fashioned publishing this must be hard to beat. Everyone smokes, returns tiddly from boozy lunches, and authors are treated with respect. It knocks spots off The Devil Wears Prada.” —The Sydney Morning Herald “Lures you in. . . . A story about growing up and getting better in a rapidly changing industry and world.” —Flavorwire, “June 2014 Books You Must Read”
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Most helpful customer reviews
49 of 53 people found the following review helpful. "Salinger was nothing like I thought. Nothing." By Jill I. Shtulman The very first thing I did upon closing the last page of this excellent book was to go to Amazon and wish list Franny and Zooey – a book I’ve been meaning to read for years. My Salinger Year made me understand – all over again – why J.D. Salinger was such a phenomenon…”because the experience of reading a Salinger story is less than reading a short story and more like having Salinger himself whisper his accounts into your year.”But make no mistake, this book is not about J.D. Salinger. Not really. It’s about Joanna Rakoff, but it could be about any young woman, straight out of college, naïve and wishful, striving to get in touch with what’s authentic and what’s real.For Ms. Rakoff, that means taking a job with sub-standard pay at a literary agency called the Agency – although just a little bit of Googling reveals that the Agency is Harold Ober Associates, a venerable agency that represented J.D. Salinger. There she worked for Phyllis Westberg (referred to as “my boss”) who fiercely protected his privacy and his legend.Young Joanna, living with her socialist would-be writer boyfriend, Don in a dumpy Wiliamsburg apartment, spends her days on her Selectric and Dictaphone…right at the time when more forward-thinking agencies have invested in computers. One of her tasks is to respond to J.D. Salinger’s many fervent fans through an Agency form letter; quickly, she abandons that practice and surreptiously begins writing her own heartfelt responses.Eventually, it dawns on us what “My Salinger Year” really means. It’s not just a year of spent responding to the voluminous and candid fan mail…and sometimes, speaking with “Jerry” himself. It’s also understanding the ongoing significance of Salinger in her life: “To somehow find a way to live in a world that sickens her. To be her authentic self. To not be the person the world is telling her to be, the girl who must bury her intelligence…who must compromise herself in order to live.”That’s not just a description of Franny. It’s an apt description of Joanna Rakoff. Indeed, these are sentences that can apply to each of us. This is a simply wonderful book, a book that’s custom-made for every aspiring writer, every passionate reader, and every dreamer who wants to face the world on her own terms.
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful. Not "just about Salinger" By E.M. Bristol When twentysomething Joanna Rakoff returns from graduate school in London to New York City in 1996, she's lucky enough to snare a "real job," with a literary agency (typing skills on a typewriter a plus!) and a boss who just happens to be J.D. Salinger's literary agent. Unbeknownst to the boss (who goes unnamed), Rakoff is one of the very few who has never read Salinger and thus at first thinks she's referring to Seinfield, when her boss gives her a lecture on "Jerry." Rule number one is that you always pass a call from Jerry onto the boss, and you also never, ever give out his personal details. In addition:"He doesn't want to read your stories. He doesn't want to hear how much you loved 'Catcher in the Rye."""I don't have any stories," I told her half-truthfully."Good," she said. "Writers always make the worse assistants."In fact, Rakoff, who goes on to publish a novel and poetry, finds that she has a knack for picking out possibilities from the slush pile and editing. But since part of her job is sending form letters to Salinger's correspondents, she becomes dissatisfied with the format, and begins to add personal touches to them. (A few she is unable to reply to for various reasons, but winds up keeping them after she leaves the agency.) She does wind up meeting "Jerry," and even having a few conversations with him, as he intends to publish his last short story "Hapworth," at the time. And - if you're like the reviewer this may make you even more envious - she gets to (briefly) meet Judy Blume.However, the bulk of the book is about Rakoff herself, adjusting to full-fledged adulthood. Away from the job, she deals with a less than ideal boyfriend, a home without heat, debt and friends who are no longer seem to share all her interests. While this is well trod territory, as is the memorable first job, Rakoff does bring a freshness to her descriptions. Many - especially the parts about how her boss slowly comes to acknowledge the necessity of computers and (gasp) the Internet are hilarious. I doubt I could be so generous and un-snarky in her shoes. Ultimately, the lessons Rakoff learns are not in themselves unique, but it's easy to cheer her on when she does begin to mature. Upon moving at the end, she even gives her plaid skirts to Goodwill. "After all, I was not a schoolgirl anymore."
30 of 36 people found the following review helpful. loved, loved, loved this memoir By g3 from the UP Rakoff's memoir recounts her post-graduate year in the late 1990's when she worked at a literary agency in New York that represented J.D. Salinger. The agency deliberately refused to modernize, so her job involved typing documents that her boss dictated on a Dictaphone. Computer literate, she had to learn to produce these documents on an IBM Selectric typewriter (I can remember when these were state of the art and the envy of every typist!). The agency, and Rakoff's boss in particular, are the guardians of Salinger's famed privacy, and Rakoff's job involves fending off all efforts by fans, publishers, journalists, and everyone else to get in touch with J.D. During the year, she comes to know Salinger somewhat, through frequent phone conversations and one in person meeting. Though well read, she had somehow missed Salinger's works, so towards the end of the year, she spends a long weekend reading them all. She knows by year's end that she does not want to spend her life as a literary agent for others. Instead, she will become an author herself. Fortunately for us, Rakoff's year of Salinger provided her with the material for this compelling tale and gave her a life-long appreciation for Salinger's work. I practically read this book in one sitting, and now want to re-read all of Salinger. Highly recommend.
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