As is well known, software guru Peter Norton purchased the Maynard-Salinger letters and returned them to Salinger, unexamined.
Salinger, who never used a computer, died January 27, 2010, one of the very, very few uncompromisers in a world full of the blah blah blah of wasted, diffuse, or sold-out, dishonest lives.
We are told that Joyce Maynard was published while still a teenager because she was a prodigy.
I believe it, I think.
But I will note that a few years ago I started inquiring into how people got published the first time. The myth is that a piece is submitted and it impresses the editors and is accepted, edited, and published. The truth is that someone generally knows someone.
So I’m not sure about Joyce Maynard.
Okay. I checked. Her mother was a published writer and journalist; and her father was a painter and English professor. So, someone possibly– maybe probably– knew someone.
Scratch the prodigy part.