When it was first published in 1998 at home in the world set off a furor in the literary world and beyond joyce maynards memoir broke a silence concerning her relationship at age eighteen with jd salinger the famously reclusive author of the catcher in the rye then age fifty three who had read a story she wrote for the new york times in her freshman year of college and sent her a letter that changed her life reviewers called her book shameless and powerful and its author . Joyce maynards memoir at home in the world is an attempt to make peace with herself at times however its hard not to see it as an act of war on her parents and most notably on jd salinger maynards account of her year long relationship with the reclusive american writer is the centrepiece of the book and the publicity pivot on which it turns and how not she first encountered salinger when he wrote her a fan letter following her world weary but not necessarily wordly wise. At home in the world is a brutally honest memoir by joyce maynard she describes her early life with highly accomplished parents her father was an alcoholic and her mother a housewife both wanted to do more with their lives but were regulated to less than fufilling roles her older sister rona was a bit distant and cold but was able to get on with her life. When it was first published in 1998 at home in the world set off a furor in the literary world and beyond joyce maynards memoir broke a silence concerning her relationship at age eighteen with jd salinger the famously reclusive author of the catcher in the rye then age fifty three who had read a story she wrote for the new york times in her freshman year of college and sent her a letter that changed her life reviewers called her book shameless and powerful and its author was