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Letter from Joyce Archives
May 13, 1999
Dear Friends,
I
got home from Macedonia this past Saturday. As many of you know, I'd been
staying in a refugee camp outside of Skopje, writing about the experiences
of one particular family who had fled their home in Kosovo. There were
fifteen of us in the tent -- the grandmother, two uncles, three aunts,
eight children. Sleeping and eating together as we did, and listening
to their stories, I came to feel a very deep connection to this family.
It is my hope that what I write will help American readers identify with
the agonizing situation they are experiencing -- as we can, more easily,
identify with the situation of families in Littleton Colorado.
I spoke no Albanian of course, and the family I stayed with spoke no English, and though a translator stayed with us for a portion of every day, at night she went home, and we were left to communicate without words. So we drew pictures and acted things out, and managed amazingly well. After wracking my brain to come up with a song I could teach them, whose lyrics wouldn't be too complicated, I settled on Kumbaya. The morning I left, a parade of a couple of dozen children followed me to the gates of the camp, singing together. It was hard to leave.
I will have a lot more to say about the refugees' experience, and mine with them, once I've written my story. For now, I will just tell you that spending a week with people who have lost just about everything but each other has given me a well-timed perspective concerning some of the fuss going on at the moment over my decision to sell my letters from J.D. Salinger.
To anyone who finds himself shocked or outraged by my decision, I might suggest he or she read my most recent book before forming an opinion. In the eyes of the young girl who received them, those letters were the tender, wise, deeply loving words of a sage with whom she planned to spend her life. Love letters. Inviolable. Read with a full knowledge of what transpired in the relationship -- and an understanding that the correspondence was one of many such correspondences, with other young girls -- they suggest a somewhat darker and more troubling story.
Still, there appear to be many people who hold to the belief that it is a woman's responsibility to remain silent about the behavior of a man with whom she has had a relationship, regardless of what that behavior might have entailed--particularly if the man is a vastly celebrated writer. I haven 't heard any of my critics express approval or endorsement for the way Salinger chose to conduct himself in this relationship, as reported in my book. Their message is simply: she should have kept quiet about it.
What are these critics saying, when they express outrage at my unwillingness to keep Salinger's secrets? I see no conclusion but that a man's greatness as a writer somehow entitles him to behave however he chooses with girls or women, safe in the knowledge that should one of them presume to speak of it, she alone will be found guilty of the crime of violating the privacy of a literary legend. Why is it, I wonder, that the opinion-givers are so ready to ascribe motives of exploitation to me, and so unwilling to ask themselves whether there might not have been some element of exploitation at work on the part of the famous and powerful fifty three year old man who sought me out at eighteen? He surely knew, when he signed his name to that first letter he wrote, that it would hold enormous power and influence over the recipient. And it did.
As
I have said before, my decision to sell my Salinger letters is a purely
financial, practical one. My children's education matters more to me than
a stack of old letters in a box in my drawer. I have no interest in carrying
out acts of retribution against J.D. Salinger. But neither do I feel I
owe Salinger my protection. End of story.
On other fronts, I want to tell you all how much I enjoyed catching up on your stories in the archive, posted while I was away on my travels, and to remind you that all proceeds from sales of items in the Joyce Maynard Catalogue go directly to our tireless web-mistress, Myrna. Maybe it's about time you picked up a copy of that Where Love Goes soundtrack CD your teenagers have been clamoring for? Check it out.
Keep your eye on this spot next week. We'll be posting portions of my Brazil diary, from my recent trip there with my son Charlie. And I'll be telling you more about Macedonia soon too.
Meanwhile, let's hear what's been on your mind.
Joyce
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