MacArthur Fellowships are given each year, but the nomination and selection processes are completely closed. Winners are called without warning and told that they may receive the prestigious prize. Reclusive author J.D. Salinger has been in the news twice this week. Publication follows a three-year imbroglio over who would publish the book, and for how much. Margaret Salinger had originally signed on with the Penguin Putnam imprint, Riverhead Books.
Sources vary on the amount of the advance.
It was thought to have been as high as seven figures. There has been no reaction from Salinger. In another saga that ended recently, some of J.D. Salinger's letters, sold by a brief live-in companion of the author's, may be returned to him. The sale of the letters was a business decision. Maynard previously published a memoir about her brief affair with Salinger.