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Holden & Me, by Alan Balter
Winner, Novel, 2004

What would you do if, even if you were as famous as J. D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, you still felt as if no one in the entire world — not even all the fans of Catcher in the Rye — really understood what your life was like?

Editorial Review
That's the premise of this exciting first novel by Alan Balter.  "Call me Holden." No last name necessary. The narrator of this witty, satirical, and compassionate novel is famous all over the world. The great JD Salinger wrote an entire book about him: THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. But this book is even better than JD's classic original because Holden himself has decided to help write the untold story of his life by sharing his personal and private diary. That way, this version will be the absolutely undeniably completely true story of his life. With nothing left out. Well, with almost nothing left out. How honestly can Holden write about some of the people who live with him? Can he candidly tell us everything about the people who run the building where he lives? Can he reveal family secrets? Will he be able to share the joy and rapture and tragedy of his relationship with Nurse Grace, the love of his life? Most important of all, though, what can he tell us about Commander Evil — the angry, vengeful, all-powerful dictator who's intent on destroying Holden's sanity, happiness, and life? Will he be able to free himself from the tyrannical Commander Evil or trap himself ever more tightly in the Commander's darkest prison? With sympathy, sensitivity, respect, irony, acerbic wit, and a satirical world-view similar to Holden's own, author Alan Balter takes us into a world most of us have never seen. A world most of us have never even imagined, let alone understood. Holden's private world. Where nothing is as it seems to be.

© 2006 Sherri Szeman & RockWay Press^®

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