Dream Catcher
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Overview
In her much-anticipated memoir, Margaret A. Salinger writes about life with her famously reclusive father, J.D. Salinger -- offering a rare look into the man and the myth, what it is like to be his daughter, and the effect of such a charismatic figure on the girls and women closest to him.With generosity and insight, Ms. Salinger has written a book that is eloquent, spellbinding, and wise, yet at the same time retains the intimacy of a novel. Her story chronicles an almost cultlike environment of extreme isolation and early neglect interwoven with times of laughter, joy, and dazzling beauty.
Ms. Salinger compassionately explores the complex dynamics of family relationships. Her story is one that seeks to come to terms with the dark parts of her life that, quite literally, nearly killed her, and to pass on a life-affirming heritage to her own child.
The story of being a Salinger is unique; the story of being a daughter is universal. This book appeals to anyone, J.D. Salinger fan or no, who has ever had to struggle to sort out who she really is from whom her parents dreamed she might be.
Synopsis
bower of imaginary friends, books about lands somewhere East of the Sun
and West of the Moon...
In real life, however, it was a world that dangled between dream and
nightmare on a gossamer thread my parents wove, without the reality of
solid ground to catch a body should he or she fall."
In her much-anticipated memoir, Margaret A. Salinger writes about life with her famously reclusive father, J.D. Salinger—offering a rare look into the man and the myth, what it is like to be his daughter, and the effect of such a charismatic figure on the girls and women closest to him.
With generosity and insight, Ms. Salinger has written a book that is eloquent, spellbinding, and wise, yet at the same time retains the intimacy of a novel. Her story chronicles an almost cultlike environment of extreme isolation and early neglect interwoven with times of laughter, joy, and dazzling beauty. She also delves into her parents' lives before her own birth, illuminating their childhoods, their wrenching experiences during World War II, and above all the seeds and real-life inspirations for J.D. Salinger's literary preoccupation with "phonies," protracted innocence, precocious children, and spiritual perfection.
Ms. Salinger compassionately explores the complex dynamics of family relationships. Her story is one that seeks to come to terms with the dark parts of her life that, quite literally, nearly killed her, and to pass on a life-affirming heritage to her own child.
The story of being a Salinger is unique; the story of being a daughter is universal. This book appeals to anyone, J.D. Salinger fan or no, who has ever had to struggle to sort out who she really is from who her parents dreamed she might be.
Bookreporter.com
It is hard enough to grow up without having your father be a giant on the literary scene, a sensitive auteur so marked by the constant and inalienable traumas he suffered at the hands of his adoring and equally sensitive public that he moved to New Hampshire, living like Boo Radley in an old house with wives and the occasional girlfriend and a medicine chest full of herbal remedies designed to stave off the horrors of aging. J. D. Salinger, author of THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, the man who wrote the most classic tale of alienation and teenage angst in American letters, is no mere ghost. Margaret, a basketball-loving girl who didn't think of her dad as some remarkable cultural icon, has now written a simple and almost balanced tome to the man who sired her. --Jana Siciliano
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Probably one of the best-known recluses in history, J. D. Salinger is perhaps also one of the most scrutinized. With Dream Catcher, his daughter, Margaret A. Salinger, has taken this scrutiny to the next level, examining the psyche of the long-silent author of The Catcher in the Rye as only a daughter could.Bookreporter.com
It is hard enough to grow up without having your father be a giant on the literary scene, a sensitive auteur so marked by the constant and inalienable traumas he suffered at the hands of his adoring and equally sensitive public that he moved to New Hampshire, living like Boo Radley in an old house with wives and the occasional girlfriend and a medicine chest full of herbal remedies designed to stave off the horrors of aging. J. D. Salinger, author of THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, the man who wrote the most classic tale of alienation and teenage angst in American letters, is no mere ghost. Margaret, a basketball-loving girl who didn't think of her dad as some remarkable cultural icon, has now written a simple and almost balanced tome to the man who sired her. --Jana SicilianoRon Rosenbaum
....there is information here that can't help altering, and enlarging, our estimation of his work...This memoir may well prompt a reassessment of the place of Salinger’s fiction in American literature... New York Times
John Leonard
Margaret A. Salinger - has written Dream Catcher, a memoir that would break the heart even if her father weren't the reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye. Maybe there's a gene for splendid prose. CBS News Sunday Morning
Linton Weeks
The book has just about everything you'd look for in a Salinger story. Clear writing. Edgy characters. A dash of death. A pinch of sex. A dollop of loneliness. And lots and lots of weirdness. Washington Post
Susan Stamberg
Peggy Salinger has become a sort of dream catcher herself. NPR'S Morning Edition
Susan Shapiro
...[a] hot new tell-all memoir that blows the lid off of her 81-year-old father's bizarre, secretive life.” “For J.D. Salinger fans and scholars, the details are fascinating.” “She sheds light on autobiographical elements in her father's writing and shares acute psychological insights... New York Post
Dinitia Smith
Salinger's Daughter's Truths as Mesmerizing as His Fiction New York Times, on the web.
Deirdre Donahue
An unprecedented look at one of the country’s most admired and reclusive writers. USA Today
Anne Driscoll
...a controversial, emotionally charged memoir...&#`151 People Magazine
Nancy Schiefer
... an artful and accomplished writer. The Toronto Sun