At Home in the World: A Memoir

I picked up this book for $5 on the strength of having recently seen "To Die For" on video. I did not know who Joyce Mynard was, nor Jerry Salinger (exccept as the author of "Catcher in the Rye"). At then end of this book I felt that I knew them both. Maynard's story is not an expose of Salinger, but a narrative of how a woman can be seduced by one man's charismatic power, and sublimate her own talent in order to have that man's approval for her own existence. Maynard's story is a modern version of the Svengali archetype. However it is also a story of women's strength and survival, in spite of her wanting to return to the hoped-for fairy-tale of what might have been. Even when confronted with the evidence of Salinger's predilection for young women, and his betrayal of her, Maynard still teeters on the disbelief that we are individually special to one such man. Women everywhere harbour the image of the ideal relationship, whether it is with a Salinger or a Steve (Maynard's ex-husband). In the end, we realise, as Maynard has shown, the only person on whom a woman can rely is herself. "At Home in the World" is a microscopic examination of a woman's most important relationships - with her mother, her sister and her daughter. Maynard's honesty in telling her story is the strength of this book. I felt a similar resonance on reading the work of the English writer, Anne Oakley, in her book "The Men's Room". Oakley, too, writes from the heart of her personal experience. Although Maynard refers to Sylvia Plath, I have always felt that Plath contrived a safe distance from her reader audience. Maynard does not do this, and neither does Oakley. Both these writers convey the impression of approaching their readers with their open arms, as if saying "Here I am, take me as you find me." Plath, on the other hand, covers her face with her hands in defence of herself and the rawness of her pain. There is little difference between Ted Hughes's treatment of Plath and Salinger's treatment of Maynard, except that Salinger released Joyce in life, while Hughes released Sylvia in death. Once I began this book I was unable to put it don, so involved was I with the lives of teh people within the covers. I have an urgent need to share it with my own daughter (aged 21) and with my best women friends. Thank you, Joyce Maynard, for having the courage to share your story and giving us the courage to share ours.

Though not someone who has followed all of Joyce Maynard's career, I still found myself immersed almost from her opening paragraphs. There is a lot here, some disturbing, some thought-provoking, and always fascinating. I was surprised, as I was one who, almost on principle, felt J. D. Salinger's privacy, if it's so important to him, should above all not be violated. However, I realized as I went along, that this is really missing the point and is also implicitly saying that Salinger, as Great Writer, is more important than others in his life. But this IS Joyce Maynard's life, not J. D. Salinger's, though he does figure in her life for 10 months and she learned a great deal about herself from analyzing that relationship's hold upon her.I do not see that she has exploited her relationship with him; I don't even see that she has particularly said horribly negative things about him, for that matter. I also feel that all the focus on this book as being about Maynard's sense of "victimization" by a "dysfunctional family" and an older man, J. D. Salinger, are simply way off the mark and totally missing the main points of her story. She does not portray herself as a victim and her self-analyses and self-criticism ring true as evidence of her having made some hardwon peace with her past and having reached a maturity that has often not seemed characteristic of her work in the past. I also think there is a great deal more humor and a great deal more irony than people have generally been writing about in reviewing this book. The theme of authenticity vs. inauthenticity, for example, is an important one, whether one is critical of Maynard's narcissism or not. J. D. Salinger's own naricissism is fairly transparent in her story & obviously one of the reasons, coming from the family that she did, that he had such a hold over her. Ultimately, of course, his concern with authenticity and genuineness and purity are indeed compromised by the many things within himself that he doesn't wish to look at.Actually, I thought she was quite kind about the relationship, as if she had taken responsibility for the part she played in getting involved with him in the first place.A couple of interesting lines that keep coming back to me are "What purpose did I serve in your life" and her observation that she was . . . "one who had made the mistake of trying to live out fictions best left on the page," a common mistake of imaginative young people & we'd all be doing well to have accepted our past with the grace and wisdom she seems to have arrived at.

At Home in the World is an absolutely amazing coming-of-age odyssey. For just piercing observation and the capturing of life's nuances alone, this is one of the best autobiographies I have read. But it soars beyond memoir and delivers far more than insights into the personal life of J.D. Salinger. This is foremost a heartbreaking cautionary tale about the dangers of repressing shame, risks of interpersonal manipulation, and the emotional devastation that can stem from power imbalances within intimate relationships, particularly those involving young adults. It also speaks volumes about the vulnerabilities and contradictions faced by girls in our culture. (Anyone who liked Reviving Ophelia must read this book.)One of the most powerful aspects of the book, paradoxically, is its understated writing style. Joyce Maynard has an enviable gift of being able to relate emotionally amped personal experiences in a tempered, eloquently subdued tone. Her narration almost seems to run in the background. What this does is permit the lessons and compelling revelations from her life to quietly rise to the surface and subtly but potently merge with the reader's. At Home In the World is one of the most emotionally involving books out there; it awakens much within the alert reader.Maybe it's the dignity within AHITW that partly explains why it has engendered so much controversy. (Actually an entire other book could be written analyzing the explosive responses to this memoir and to Joyce Maynard herself, and what it reveals about some of our baser cultural values.) In this day of shrill, tabloid-style kiss-and-tells, I'm guessing more than a few critics were angry and disappointed that Ms. Maynard didn't produce a juicier, rancorous memoir chock-a-block with shocking insights and salacious four-poster details about America's most reclusive writer. Instead, I found her treatment of Salinger to be respectful -- where it was deserved -- and even-handed. This is an admirably fair and dignified recollection of an intolerant and controlling talent who appears to have had few qualms about exercising his power to beckon, transform and mentally imprison teenage girls. And then devastatingly dismiss them. In short, a man who seems to have some irregularities in his Rorschachs.Joyce Maynard is a daring writer and At Home in the World is an astonishing accomplishment. Ms. Maynard makes a relentless search for truth that both inspires and challenges us to search for our own truth. Her writing of this book was an act of heroism: for teenage girls and their parents, for women, for men, for us all. At Home in the World is wise, insightful and constructed with heartrending skill. Enriching and disturbing, it will stay with the reader for a long, long time.

I first read this book several months ago, but feel compelled to comment now because so many members of the press have treated Joyce Maynard as though she had peed on the American flag. What she has done is to write a painfully honest story of a family journey that includes one major, attention-getting stop: her sad, brief, and ultimately devastating relationship with an American icon. When J.D. Salinger realized that the painfully young, painfully thin, unworldly girl he had invited into his New Hampshire aerie was only human, and not able to follow his abstemious, judgmental way of life no matter how hard she tried, he kicked her out. Joyce Maynard, who'd given up a scholarship to Yale at Salinger's bidding, initially may have reminded him of the perfect, pure little-girl characters he created, and that so many American readers love (such as Phoebe from "Catcher in the Rye," or Esme from "For Esme--With Love and Squalor"). But this powerful, famous man became, as Joyce Maynard writes, "the closest thing I ever had to a religion." Once this "religion" was snatched away from her, she labored to put together a life for herself. How Joyce stumbled and fell, how she picked herself up, makes fascinating reading. "At Home in the World" also speaks volumes about what is expected from women (and what women expect from themselves) as lovers, wives, mothers, and wage-earners. Perhaps Joyce Maynard's detractors see her work as a mirror that reminds them, all too uncomfortably, of themselves. Give this book a chance.