My Salinger Year

A Memoir by Joanna Rakoff; Review by Jamie Wendt for JewishBookCouncil.org

Joanna Rakoff’s memoir about her year working at a New York literary agency provides wonderful and oftentimes humor­ous insight into the nitty-gritty of the ‘90s publishing world. On the cusp of the technol­ogy age and the new millennium, Joanna finds herself in an office with typewriters instead of computers, dim lighting, no copy machine, and a boss set against modernity who seems to have worked at The Agency forever.

As a recent college graduate in her early twenties, Joanna is captivated by the New York literary scene. She wants to live like a writer, excited by the idea of being a starving artist on a tiny salary that eventually causes her to move into an apartment without heat or a sink. Her overbearing and aloof boy­friend, Don, is also a writer and calls Joanna “bourgeois” for only having read certain literary classics. Joanna struggles with finding a balance between achieving her own literary and career ambitions and spending time with her boyfriend.

Continue reading.


For more on Jewish books, check out our    page.