Product Description: A spirited, deeply personal inquiry into the near-mythic life and canonical work of J. D. Salinger by a writer known for his sensitivity to the Manhattan culture that was Salinger's great theme.Three years after his death at ninety-one, J...read more

A spirited, deeply personal inquiry into the near-mythic life and canonical work of J. D. Salinger by a writer known for his sensitivity to the Manhattan culture that was Salinger's great theme.Three years after his death at ninety-one, J.D. Salinger remains our most mythic writer. The Catcher in the Rye (1951) became an American classic, and he was for a long time the writer for The New Yorker. Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters introduced, by way of the Glass family, a new type in contemporary literature: the introspective, voluble cast of characters whose stage is the Upper East Side of New York. But fame proved a burden, and in 1953 Salinger fled to New Hampshire, spending the next half century in isolation.Beller has followed his subject's trail, from his Park Avenue childhood to his final refuge, barnstorming across New England to visit various Salinger shrines, interviewing just about everyone alive who ever knew Salinger. The result is a quest biography in the tradition of Geoff Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage, a book as much about the biographer as about the subject-two vivid, entertaining stories in one.

Product Description: This anthology features the best stories from the first twenty years of Open City magazine, including works by an array of debut and established writers. Featured pieces are: "Uncertain Times," the beginning of an unfinished work by Richard Yates, a fictional account of his time as a speech writer for Robert Kennedy; "The Egg Man" by Scott Smith (author of A Simple Plan); "High Wire" by Robert Stone"; "Eurotrash" by Irvine Welsh, which was his debut publication in the US and has since not appeared in any other publication; "17 Quai Voltaire," an essay by Paul Bowles that has also not appeared elsewhere...read more

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Product Description: Approaching its eighteenth birthday, Open City has become one of today’s most respected and widely known literary journals. Contributors consistently become household names following their debuts in the magazine—guaranteeing that readers can be the first to read the literary stars of tomorrow...read more

Product Description: True stories from the Naked City―a tour of the subterranean psyche of New York. Acclaimed fiction writer Thomas Beller culls a new volume of essays, vignettes, and tales of the city from the literary Web site Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, one of the premier venues for the urban sketch on the Internet...read more

Product Description: The most important new literary journal to emerge since Granta, Open City has published some of the best work by major writers and artists such as Mary Gaitskill, Denis Johnson, Jeff Koons, David Foster Wallace, Irvine Welsh, Terry Southern, Patrick McCabe, Sam Lipsyte, and David Berman...read more