The Salinger Contract (PDF)

<DIV>Born and raised in Chicago, Adam Langer is the author of the novels <i>Crossing California</i>, <i>The Washington Story</i>, <i>Ellington Boulevard</i>, and <i>The Thieves of Manhattan</i>, and the memoir <i>My Father&rsquo;s Bonus March</i>. His has written about books and authors for such publications as the <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, the <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, the <i>New York Times</i>, the <i>Huffington Post</i>, the <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i>, and the <i>Washington Post</i>, among others. He has been a frequent radio and TV guest, including appearances on CNN, Fox, and NPR&rsquo;s <i>Morning Edition</i> and <i>All Things Considered</i>. The Chicago Public Library recently purchased a significant collection of his papers. He is the former senior editor of <i>Book Magazine</i> and currently serves as the arts and culture editor of the <i>Jewish Daily Forward</i>. Langer lives in New York City with his wife, Beate; his daughters, Nora and Solveig; and their dog, Kazoo.&#160;</div>

A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2013  

“Skewers pretensions of writers and writing, editors and publishers—and perhaps audiences—in a literary thriller. . . . Marvelously intriguing.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Whom do we really write for and why? Langer’s mad-genius look at creativity, publishing, and the difference between what we do for love and what we’re forced to do for money, plumbs the dark side of inspiration with funhouse aplomb. Dizzyingly brilliant, with prose as clear as a rushing stream.” —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times–bestselling author of Pictures of You and Is This Tomorrow
“‘Revelatory. Keeps all its secrets to the end, which is a whopper.’ . . . Wait. That’s a blurb for a novel within Adam Langer’s novel. But it applies just as well to The Salinger Contract, Langer’s latest nervy excursion on the boundary between fiction, non-fiction, and literary gamesmanship. A lot of fun, up to and including that whopper . . .” —Ben Yagoda, author of How to Not Write Bad: The Most Common Writing Problems and the Best Ways to Avoid Them and Memoir: A History

“In The Salinger Contract, Adam Langer serves as chief anthropologist, guiding us deftly through the tribal customs of the literary world—its longings, follies, disappointments, and secret obsessions. Like nesting boxes, this novel is neat with puzzles and intrigue. I couldn’t put it down—a cliché I can’t resist!” —Patricia Henley, National Book Award–nominated author of Other Heartbreaks and In the River Sweet

“The Salinger Contract is at once a mercilessly readable thriller, and a sly commentary on the state of the artist in the modern world. Langer undermines the reader’s expectation at every twist and turn, proving, as only the best thrillers do, that nothing is what it