It’s a little funny that it takes Joycie two fucking pages to tell us about her ab-fab do, and perhaps a little more funny that the NYT illustrates the article not with a photo of Maynard but rather the cut’s inspiration, a 2002 glamour shot of Wynona Ryder, but when Tim sneers at Joycie for being “onetime amuse-bouche to J.D. Salinger” I feel I have to put my foot down.
It’s true that Joyce has been ticking people off for a long time, ever since the early seventies, when, at the tender age of 18, she published a “talkin’ ‘bout my generation” piece for the New York Times Sunday Magazine,* complete with her picture on the cover, thus giving about one million unpublished self-hating neurotics a severe case of spiritual heartburn.
One writer who wasn’t so affected was notorious recluse J.D. Salinger, who propositioned Joycie, who promptly accepted. Tacky, you say? Maybe so, or maybe no, but listen to this: While Joyce was staying with J.D., he made her listen to Tommy Dorsey records!† I’m sorry, but the girl has suffered, and attention must be paid. So lay off, Tim! She’s paid her dues!
*Back in the day, the NYT Sunday mag was one of the fattest and most profitable magazines in the country. I don’t know why Sunday newspaper mags were so popular then, nor why they aren’t now, but those are the facts.
†In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden makes reference to a classmate who could whistle the trumpet solo from “Song of India,” which was a big hit for the Dorsey band. Salinger doesn’t make Holden say what Salinger surely knew, that it was Bunny Berigan on trumpet—a character shouldn’t know as much as his creator.
