IN SEARCH OF J. D. SALINGER <i> by Ian Hamilton Vintage: $8.95</i>

This biography became something of a cause celebre in 1986, when Salinger emerged from two decades of seclusion and attempted to block its publication. After a series law suits, Hamilton rewrote the text, shifting the focus to his labors as the biographer of an unwilling subject. The result is an arch solipsism that attempts to cash in on the continuing popularity of “The Catcher in the Rye.”

Salinger is so obsessed with protecting his private life that he has committed the literary equivalent of seppuku and refused to publish any fiction for almost 30 years. In a series of coy dialogues with himself, Hamilton decides that Salinger’s search for privacy is really a sort of dare to “catch me if you can.” He can’t. He assembles an array of facts about the man’s life from secondary sources, but his subject eludes him, and there is little, if anything, in this book that will enhance the reader’s enjoyment of Salinger’s fiction.