If only Andrew Young had J.D. Salingers sense of privacy
By Kathleen Parker
Obviously absolute privacy for politicians isnt tenable or even desirable to the same degree that a book author might deserve or demand. In a broader sense however the extent to which we feel entitled to anothers private life disregarding collateral damage to others is a pox on all our houses.
But Andrew Young by now unavoidable is the former (and formerly devoted) aide to John Edwards who has just added a new tome to that best-selling genre admits he wrote the book for the money. Do tell.
My favorite thing about J.D. Salinger wasnt his seminal work or his most famous character Holden Caulfield but how little I knew of him thanks to his relentless pursuit of privacy.
Its the same thing I also love about two other favorite writers both coincidentally great Southern dames Harper Lee and Florence King. The former Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird has declined most interview requests since the 1960 publication of the novel.
Her recorded public ventures have included judging an annual high school essay-writing contest sponsored by the University of Alabama. She also visited Washington in 2007 to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Otherwise to fans kind invitations to be interviewed Lee has written personal notes declining.
Similarly King whose witty erudite and often laugh-out-loud essays and books have amused readers for decades shuns the glare of appreciation. She is known to communicate by snail mail with a select few and even to e-mail occasionally but is not one to open the door should someone summon the audacity to knock.
Some of Kings funniest pieces pertain to her avoidance of fans but her best musings concern what we charitably refer to as American culture. To wit: Time has lost all meaning in that nightmare alley of the Western world known as the American mind.
In the days since Salingers death at age 91 much has been written about all we didnt know about him. So mysterious was he that at times during his 30-year silence it was easy to wonder whether he was still alive. Given the breathless pace of breaking news we scarcely have time to note a death much less to mourn the loss. Theres something awry in the rat race when one wonders two days after a fact whether its too late to write about it.
Now we wonder: Did Salinger leave behind a trove? Are there new Holden Caulfields to discover? Notebooks of cultural criticism? Can we finally possess his thoughts after so many years of being denied entrance to his private sanctum?
I am not immune to the hope that other works will surface. At this point cocktail napkin doodles will do. We shall read and we shall be moved to gladness or sadness but by Salinger we will be moved.
But by Andrew Young? Not so much.
Young by now unavoidable is the former (and formerly devoted) aide to John Edwards who has just added a new tome to that best-selling genre the tell-all. Publication of The Politician happened to coincide with Salingers death thus prompting the inevitable detour into the dot-connecting abyss of Kings aforementioned nightmare alley.
No reluctant famer that Young fellow.
Of course few writers whether they pen fiction or nonfiction can afford to be as mysterious as Salinger or King or Lee. The saturated book market demands that even the most private of authors subject themselves to the gantlet of a book tour if theyre lucky enough to land one and to schmoozing with potential book buyers.
Still how far we have come from the days of admiring a reclusive writer who sought shelter from the corrosive effects of fame to celebrating a typist as Truman Capote once described On the Road author Jack Kerouac whose motives are only fame the attendant lucre and increasingly political status.
Young tells all he claims for the integrity of the public record even though Edwards is a contender for nothing and is by any measure already a ruined man.
We are supposed to embrace as virtue Youngs assertion that he has declined gigantic sums of money offered for a sex tape he claims to possess of Edwards and his mistress.
As we mourn the death of an author who prized personal space above fame and fortune we might also mourn the dearth of enigma. Ultimately respecting anothers privacy is an act of self-respect of which we have too little. Alas for good reason.
