Controversial J.D. Salinger bio, documentary in works

PanARMENIAN.Net - Simon & Schuster has acquired the rights to The Private War of J.D. Salinger, the anticipated biography of The Catcher in the Rye author J.D. Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Publisher Jonathan Karp announced the book will be published in September.

Salerno also directed a documentary film that was acquired by the PBS series American Masters. The series will air Salinger in January 2014 as its 200th episode. It is unusual for PBS to acquire an outside documentary to air on American Masters, as most projects are commissioned in house.

Shields and Salerno have been working on the biography for more than eight years. It includes interviews with more than 150 sources who either worked directly with the famously reclusive Salinger, had a personal relationship with him or were influenced by his work. The authors have shaped the interviews into an oral biography, which will be accompanied by never-before-seen photos of Salinger.

“The myth that people have read about and believed for 60 years about J.D. Salinger is one of someone too pure to publish, too sensitive to be touched,” said Salerno. “We replace the myth of Salinger with an extraordinarily complex, deeply contradictory human being. Our book offers a complete revaluation and reinterpretation of the work and the life.”

Salinger died in 2010, 30 years after his last interview and 45 years after his last published work. The iconic Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951 and has sold more than 120 million copies worldwide.