Liz's Top Twenty of 2014, Day 2

Fiction:

I never watched the US version of The Office and I haven't gotten around to seeing The Mindy Project, so I really didn't have much of an idea who BJ Novak was when I read his short story collection One More Thing. I knew he was a comedian. It turns out he's also a writer.

These are SHORT short stories; some are only a few pages or paragraphs. They are also charming, effervescent, thought-provoking, and irreverent. For example, there's "The Something by John Grisham." Novak riffs on the publishing joke about all of Grisham's titles are "The __________." In this sketch, Grisham delivers his latest manuscript to Doubleday and an intern keys in "The Something" as a place holder until the book is titled. ...Except it goes to press that way. Oops. Another story that stuck in my head is an imagining of a Comedy Central Roast for Nelson Mandela. It's one thing to hear Gilbert Gottfried squawk out raucous jokes at David Hasselhoff's expense, but imagine that voice lampooning one of the great civil rights leaders of the last century. Yeah, I'd watch that.

Non-Fiction:

My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff is a dishy, fun, literary memoir about the year that Rakoff spent working in a New York literary agency. She was waffling with her career direction and relationship and ended up moving into a dump of an apartment with her live-in boyfriend and taking a job in publishing. It turned out that the job was as the assistant to the head of a literary agency with a glorious past and some big author clients. Judy Blume is a client, for instance. So is this guy Jerry who calls in periodically to ask questions about royalties. He's hard of hearing and therefore screams into the phone, and he calls Joanna "Suzanne" all the time. Also, the place stops when Jerry calls. Jerry is the enigmatic J.D. Salinger, and it's 1996, the year Salinger almost breaks his silence and allows a story to be published for the first time in decades. It's 1996, but the office still relies on electric typewriters and dictaphones, and one of Joanna's duties is to reply to the many fan letters Salinger receives. This memoir is eventful, well written, and full of literary dirt. It's about a woman trying to figure out her life while an agency tries to figure out its role in a rapidly changing industry landscape.

J.D. Salinger on Line One

Okay, so I was preparing for sales conference in February and there was a book on the list called My Salinger Year that was a priority. "Priority"=everyone must read at least an excerpt. The thing is that I HATE reading excerpts of books. I am a book monogamist and if I start something, there's about a 95% chance that I will see the book through to the end. So I'm looking at this manuscript and I'm feeling a bit of reluctance because here's the thing: I don't really love J.D. Salinger. I started asking my colleagues. "Is it about Salinger?" "Do I have to like Salinger to like it?" "What if I think The Catcher in the Rye is stupid?*" Ultimately though, I know that it's my job to read books that I might not personally like. One of the great joys of my job, is the great discovery, and even more special is the book that turns out to be great when it defies my preconceived notions. Don't judge a book by its title, it turns out.

This is a Dictaphone.
It is not considered modern technology.

Joanna Rakoff's memoir My Salinger Year is simply a joyful, pleasurable, memorable reading experience. Fresh out of college and wanting to be a writer, Joanna takes a job as an assistant at a literary agency. For those not in the book business, pretty much if you want to get a publishing deal, you first have to find an agent. This agency is an old house of some repute, and Joanna is excited to dive into work. She's so excited, in fact, that her first day happens to be the day of a blizzard and she's the only person who shows up for work. It's an auspicious start. Also, though it's 1996, the office still uses typewriters and Dictaphones. I was in college in 1996 and I know for a fact that computers and email were common and the standard for communicating and word processing. And then there's the agency's most famous client, Jerry.

Joanna Smith Rakoff
No longer an agent's assistant.

Jerry, of course, is famous recluse J.D. Salinger, and 1996 happened to be a significant year for Salinger and his agent and his agent's assistant. Joanna answers the phone and transcribes notes and opens the many, many letters that arrive for Salinger from his fans. She is supposed to reply with a standard letter, but she's a writer and curious about the letter writers' stories and violates the form letter policy. Also, Jerry? He's hard of hearing and screams into the phone and never actually manages to call Joanna by her actual name. Joanna, too, hasn't actually read Salinger. Can you see the appeal of this book?

Jerry

Rakoff writes a fun, interesting memoir that captures this one year in her life. I like her writing, and I like that the book doesn't try to do too much. It's the story of a newly independent woman making her way into the working world while trying to figure out her personal life and who she wants to be as an adult. These are Salinger-esque themes, and to some extent universal. She's not a phony. It's also a book about the publishing industry and what it's like to work behind the scenes with one of the biggest writers of the 20th Century. My Salinger Year takes the legend of J.D. Salinger and presents Jerry, the guy who calls in the talk about royalties; it's a humanizing book for both the author Salinger and the author Rakoff. This book is intelligent, wise, effervescent, a really good read. Thank goodness for assigned reading for compelling me to dive in.

*For the record, I did like Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. I think I read The Catcher in the Rye too late; as a 27 year old, Holden Caulfield struck me as a whiny, spoiled, white guy with what's referred to these days as "first world problems" (a term I also hate).