The late J.D. Salinger is often regarded as a prophetic genius and a soft-spoken recluse. His droves of fans deified him and his prose. However, as is the case with many male celebrities, he had a nasty tendency to take in teenage girls (well into his old age) and have romantic/sexual relationships with them. Several of them later came forward with recounts of their experiences with Salinger, recalling how he would draw them in with praise, have a short-lived relationship with them, and spit them out. These accounts were often backed with proof in the form of letters written to them from Salinger, but the masses would dismiss these claims, calling the women liars or attention mongers, out to drag a genius' name through the dirt. Joyce Maynard, one of the author's many flings, was 18 when she was written and asked to move in with a 53 year old Salinger. She has since written memoirs and sold letters of his, but was brushed off by the media constantly. In 2013, she wrote a very insightful and telling article that speaks on her experience living with the author and the pain he caused her, and the twisting of the proverbial knife by the media when she tried to speak up on it.
"We are talking about what happens when people in positions of power — mentors, priests, employers or simply those assigned an elevated status — use their power to lure much younger people into sexual and (in the case of Salinger) emotional relationships. Most typically, those who do this are men. And when they are done with the person they’ve drawn toward them, it can take that person years or decades to recover." - Joyce Maynard, New York Times
"As both book and film amply document, the author was a terrible father and worse husband, a man who withdrew from public life and repudiated his fame, yet was not above using that fame (via creepily seductive letters) to court teenage girls from his redoubt in Cornish, N.H." - Laura Miller, Salon
"His behavior with them sheds a queasy light on his fiction, which often dwells on the precocity and half-innocence of characters perched on the brink of ruinous disillusionment."- A.O. Scott, New York Times
"Acknowledging the experiences of Margaret Salinger or Joyce Maynard would mean deviating from the Salinger myth. To shut such conversations down, we’re told to be rational and to “separate the art from the artist.” But those insisting on this separation aren’t rejecting biographical details as part of how we understand works of art, they are merely insisting we use their narrative, in order to reach their conclusions."- Mikki Halpin, Salon
"We are talking about what happens when people in positions of power — mentors, priests, employers or simply those assigned an elevated status — use their power to lure much younger people into sexual and (in the case of Salinger) emotional relationships. Most typically, those who do this are men. And when they are done with the person they’ve drawn toward them, it can take that person years or decades to recover." - Joyce Maynard, New York Times
"As both book and film amply document, the author was a terrible father and worse husband, a man who withdrew from public life and repudiated his fame, yet was not above using that fame (via creepily seductive letters) to court teenage girls from his redoubt in Cornish, N.H." - Laura Miller, Salon
"His behavior with them sheds a queasy light on his fiction, which often dwells on the precocity and half-innocence of characters perched on the brink of ruinous disillusionment."- A.O. Scott, New York Times
"Acknowledging the experiences of Margaret Salinger or Joyce Maynard would mean deviating from the Salinger myth. To shut such conversations down, we’re told to be rational and to “separate the art from the artist.” But those insisting on this separation aren’t rejecting biographical details as part of how we understand works of art, they are merely insisting we use their narrative, in order to reach their conclusions."- Mikki Halpin, Salon