And yet reviews of Jerry Stahl's terrific Permanent Midnight and Richard Hell's Go Now were all discussions of these men's books and not their characters. Because she's naming names in the writing of this first-person memoir, she is scrupulously respectful of their autonomy as human beings. The only motivations that she probes or seeks to understand are her own. The physical descriptions of these women, their professions, verbal nuances, make them immediately recognizable to anyone who knows them. First-person writing must always be accountable.
Fiction can be an act of psychic rage.
Maynard turns out not to have an introspective bone in her body. Even Katha Pollitt, well aware of the negative press that women give to other women, faults Maynard for failing to understand her own story. After finishing the book and discovering that she was by no means the only girl who passed through Salinger's life, Maynard makes a final trip to Cornish. People do affect each other. I can't think of anything more legitimate to ask.