Deepening our understanding of a major literary and cultural figure, and filled with many fascinating revelations - including the birth defect that was the real reason Salinger was initially turned down for military service; the previously unknown romantic interest who was fourteen when Salinger met her and, he said, inspired the title character of ''For Esme-With Love and Squalor''; the first photographs ever seen of Salinger at war and the last know photos of him alive; never-before-published love letters that Salinger, at fifty-three, wrote to an eighteen-year-old Joyce Maynard; and finally, what millions have been waiting decades for: the contents of his legendary vault--Salinger is a monumental book about the cost of war and the cost of art.