Agent in the ‘Rye’
Sigourney Weaver a literary lioness in ‘My Salinger Year’
BERLIN — With “Catcher in the Rye,” J.D. Salinger wrote the once-in-a-generation kind of book that transforms people’s lives.
Yet from 1951, when the now-classic novel was published until his death nearly 60 years later, this extremely private author avoided his reverential fans.
How they were so skillfully kept away by his uppercrust literary agency is the story told in this Friday’s “My Salinger Year” starring Sigourney Weaver and Margaret Qualley.
In 1990s Manhattan, Weaver is Salinger’s literary agent Margaret, the proverbial dragon who ferociously guards the aloof writer in his ivory tower.
Fans who write beseeching, tearful missives begging for advice or comfort? Their pleas never get farther than the dead file in Margaret’s office.
“What I love about the script,” Weaver, 71, said, “is this is a love letter to the old literary world of New York that still exists, although less and less.”
The film, an adaptation of Joanna Rakoff’s 2014 memoir of her life and times as a lowly assistant in the literary agency, has Qualley (“Once Upon a Time …. in Hollywood”) as Rakoff’s stand-in, hopeful and eager to exit secretarial duties to herself become a writer.
In that era, just prior to the internet and mobile phones changing the way people live and communicate, Margaret looms as the Old Guard, taking a last stand for the written word versus oncoming technology.
“Perhaps she is a bit ridiculous,” Weaver conceded. “Happily she doesn’t see herself that way. She’s intent on protecting the literature inside her office. That whole time was where writing is so respected, a time where the writer is King. Or Queen.
“She feels in a way like the high priestess and puts her arms around that world.”
The new office computer Margaret views warily, a contraption to be hopefully ignored.
“Yes, she is made fun of constantly. Even by her own team. But she doesn’t care! Even if it’s hopeless what she’s doing.
“When she’s gone, it’s all going to crumble, that’s the end of it. That’s what she thinks.
“What’s wonderful is the movie introduces you to all of Salinger’s fans,” Weaver added with a smile. “Done in the most marvelous, original, touching way.
“We have a relationship with fans that’s quite distant. We are protected to a large extent,” she added.
“I think the fan probably doesn’t get enough recognition in our business. They are who we work for. They love film. It’s very touching to see them embodied.”