Fiction Is There to Make You Cry: Joanna Rakoff on Her Salinger Year

By Jason Diamond on Jun 6, 2014 - Flavorwire

People move to New York City with big dreams every day, and My Salinger Year, Joanna Rakoff’s memoir about her job at one of the publishing industry’s oldest and most respected literary agencies, is the type of book that sums up the life a new New Yorker. There are the apartment issues, the loneliness, and the realization that the cheapest thing on the menu is too expensive. The one big difference, however, is that J.D. Salinger is a character in Rakoff’s lovely book. And while it would have been totally for Rakoff to use her connection with the legendary author as a crutch throughout, My Salinger Year is without a doubt about its author and also much more than that: it’s a book about New York, a book about an era ending in the publishing world, and the type of memoir that only a gifted writer like Rakoff could produce. When I spoke to Joanna Rakoff, she shared memories about pre-smartphone New York, how publishing has changed, AOL.com e-mail addresses, and, of course, Salinger. … Read More