This illustrated English-language edition of French writer-filmmaker Frederic Beigbeder’s 2014 novel, Oona & Salinger. A nostalgic and bittersweet love story, Manhattan’s Babe is a fictionalized account of the true-life romance between J.D. Salinger and Oona O’Neill, daughter of the great American playwright. The two first met in New York City in 1940, when Jerry Salinger, 21, was an up-and-coming writer, and Oona, 15, was a beautiful and charming socialite who partied at the Stork Club with Truman Capote and Gloria Vanderbilt. Their all-too-short romance blossomed during the summer of 1941, just a few months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the U.S. joined World War II.
Then Salinger was drafted into the Army, and Oona went off to seek her fortune in Hollywood. He endured D-Day, battle in the Hurtgen Forest, and the liberation of the camps, and suffered post-traumatic stress, leading him to retreat from the world. She lived the glamorous life of a film star in Los Angeles, and met and married the much older Charlie Chaplin, bearing him eight children, standing with him when Hollywood turned against him, and caring for him as he became infirm.
Inspired by true events, with scenes, characterizations, dialogue, and letters imagined for dramatic purposes, Beigbeder asks the poignant question, What would they say to each other if they had met again years later?
Limited edition, gift wrapping:
- 352 pages
- 120 illustrations
- English language
- Released in January 2017
- W 16.99 x L 24.77 x D 3.4 cm
- Hardcover
- ISBN: 9781614285540
- 1.0 kg
About Author:
Frederic Beigbeder is a French writer, literary critic, filmmaker, and television host. He is the creator of the Prix de Flore and chairs its jury, and he is also editorial director of Lui magazine. In 2005 he won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for his novel Windows on the World, and in 2009 he received the Prix Renaudot for his book Un roman francais. For Assouline, Beigbeder previously contributed to Le Caca’s Club, published in 2015.
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