J. D. Salinger

Living with J. D. Salinger, Author of The Catcher in the Rye (2000)

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• published: 23 Mar 2015
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Daphne Joyce Maynard (born November 5, 1953) is an American author known for writing with candor about her life, as well as for her works of fiction and hundreds of essays and newspaper columns, often about parenting and family. The 1998 publication of her memoir, At Home in the World, made her the object of intense criticism among some members of the literary world for having revealed the story of the relationship she had with author J. D. Salinger when he was 53 and she was 18. Maynard is the mother of actor Wilson Bethel. Maynard was born in Durham, New Hampshire, the daughter of Fredelle (née Bruser), a journalist, writer, and teacher, and Max Maynard, a painter and professor of English.[1] Her father was born in India, to English missionary parents, and later moved to Canada; her mother was Jewish (she was born in Saskatchewan, to immigrants from Russia).[2][3][4] Maynard attended the Oyster River School District and Phillips Exeter Academy. She won early recognition for her writing from The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, winning student writing prizes in 1966, 1967, 1968, 1970, and 1971. While in her teens, she wrote regularly for Seventeen magazine. She entered Yale University in 1971 and sent a collection of her writings to the editors of The New York Times Magazine. They asked her to write an article for them, which was published as "An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back on Life" at the Wayback Machine (archived December 14, 2000) in the magazine's April 23, 1972 issue. The article prompted a letter from J. D. Salinger, then 53 years old, who complimented her writing and warned her of the dangers of publicity. They exchanged 25 letters, and Maynard dropped out of Yale the summer after her freshman year to live with Salinger in Cornish, New Hampshire.[5] Maynard spent ten months living in Salinger's Cornish home, during which time she completed work on her first book, Looking Back, a memoir that was published in 1973, in which she adhered to Salinger's request that she not mention his role in her life. Her relationship with Salinger ended abruptly just prior to the book's publication. According to Maynard's memoir, during a family vacation with her and with his two children from a previous marriage, Salinger mentioned that he didn't want any more children, and Maynard responded that she wanted some children of her own, at which point Salinger immediately ended the relationship. Maynard said she was devastated and begged him to take her back. Maynard never returned to college. In 1973, she used the proceeds from her first book to purchase a house on a large piece of land in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, where she lived alone for over two years. From 1973 until 1975, she contributed commentaries to a series called “Spectrum”, broadcast on CBS radio. The feature which also included conservative voices of Phyllis Schlafly and James J. Kilpatrick, and of liberals such as Murray Kempton and Nicholas von Hoffman. Maynard was not included when the feature was adopted for television in a debate format as the "Point/Counterpoint" feature of 60 Minutes. Maynard gained widespread commercial acceptance in 1992 with the publication of her novel To Die For which drew several elements from the real-life Pamela Smart murder case. It was adapted into a 1995 film of the same name starring Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck and directed by Gus Van Sant. In the late 1990s, Maynard became one of the first authors to communicate daily with her readership by making use of the Internet and an online discussion forum, The Domestic Affairs Message Board (DAMB). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Maynard