My Salinger year

by Joanna Rakoff · 2014

When 23‑year‑old poet‑in‑training Joanna Rakoff lands a job as assistant to the legendary literary agent who represents J.D. Salinger, she steps into a world of wood‑panelled offices, dictaphones, and martini‑lunched agents—an almost pre‑digital New York that is already fading. By day she navigates the glamour and eccentricities of literary high society; by night she returns to a cramped Williamsburg flat shared with her socialist boyfriend, balancing poverty and ambition. Tasked with handling the flood of fan letters addressed to the reclusive author, Joanna discovers the letters’ raw, heartbreaking honesty and can’t bring herself to send the agency’s canned reply. She begins answering them herself, forging a surprising connection to Salinger’s readers and, in the process, to her own voice. Over the course of a year, this witty, poignant memoir captures a vanished era of literary New York while charting one young woman’s unexpected journey toward artistic self‑discovery.