My Salinger Year * * *

Joanne responds to my review.

 Being a literary agent for J.D. Salinger in 1995 strikes me as easy work. I mean the guy hadn't published anything for over 30 years.  He refused to meet anyone, see anyone, or go anywhere, so I can't imagine you'd have  much to organise for him.
    But then, there was the fan mail...
    This is a true story.  It's the memoir of a young girl Joanna. (Margaret Qualley) who went to work for a New York literary agency and ended up having to write back to the hundreds of people who attempt to write to J D Salinger.  J D Salinger of course wrote "The Catcher in the Rye", one of the most celebrated novels of the last hundred years.  It's a book that millions of people say they can personally relate to.
    Her own story is somewhat quaint - as is the agency she works for; a place where nothing much has changed in years, including the furniture and equipment. The same couple have always been in charge: a chain smoking middle aged lady (Sigourney Weaver) and a genial ageing Gentleman.  The agency does not like computers and do not want them. They would prefer everything be done by typewriter, so most of her day is spent typing the same pro-forma letter over and over again. She also has to answer the phone and once in a while it might be J D himself on the line. He learns she is an aspiring poet and gives her occasional words of encouragement.
    However, it was in 1995, and whilst she was working there, that J D Salinger considered being published again.  He hadn't written a new story, in fact it had appeared in the New Yorker in the 1940's, but he felt he'd like to put it out there. Joanna becomes quite involved in the organization of that.  Though she doesn't properly meet him.
    Really, without the Salinger name, this doesn't come to much.  It's  the story of  a bright eyed enthusiastic young girl who comes to the big city and meets a precocious boy and lives in an overpriced grotty apartment with him, gets an underpaid boring job, whilst holding on to her own dream of becoming a poet. Somewhat entertaining, sweet and inoffensive, but hardly inspiring.