Jerome David Salinger (; January 1, 1919 January 27, 2010) was an American author best known for his 1951 novel ''
The Catcher in the Rye
''The Catcher in the Rye'' is an American novel by J. D. Salinger that was partially published in serial form from 1945–46 before being novelized in 1951. Originally intended for adults, it is often read by adolescents for its themes of angst ...
''. Salinger got his start in 1940, before serving in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, by publishing several short stories in ''
Story
Story or stories may refer to:
Common uses
* Story, a narrative (an account of imaginary or real people and events)
** Short story, a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting
* Story (American English), or storey (British ...
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', which published much of his later work.
''The Catcher in the Rye'' (1951) was an immediate popular success; Salinger's depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence was influential, especially among adolescent readers. The novel was widely read and controversial, and its success led to public attention and scrutiny. Salinger became
reclusive
A recluse is a person who lives in voluntary seclusion from the public and society. The word is from the Latin ''recludere'', which means "shut up" or "sequester". Historically, the word referred to a Christian hermit's total isolation from th ...
, publishing less frequently. He followed ''Catcher'' with a short story collection, '' Nine Stories'' (1953); ''
Franny and Zooey
''Franny ''and'' Zooey'' is a book by American author J. D. Salinger which comprises his short story "Franny" and novella ''Zooey'' . The two works were published together as a book in 1961, having originally appeared in ''The New Yorker'' in 19 ...
Hapworth 16, 1924 "Hapworth 16, 1924" is a short story by the American author J. D. Salinger, the last original work published in his lifetime. It appeared in the June 19, 1965, edition of ''The New Yorker'', infamously taking up almost the entire magazine. It is th ...
'', appeared in ''The New Yorker'' on June 19, 1965.
Afterward, Salinger struggled with unwanted attention, including a legal battle in the 1980s with biographer Ian Hamilton and the release in the late 1990s of memoirs written by two people close to him:
Joyce Maynard
Daphne Joyce Maynard (born November 5, 1953) is an American novelist and journalist. She began her career in journalism in the 1970s, writing for several publications, most notably '' Seventeen'' magazine and ''The New York Times''. Maynard contr ...
, an ex-lover; and his daughter Margaret Salinger.
Early life
Jerome David Salinger was born in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, New York, on January 1, 1919. His father, Sol Salinger, traded in
Kosher
(also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...
cheese, and was from a family of
Lithuanian-Jewish
Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent area ...
descent, Sol's father having been the rabbi for
Adath Jeshurun Congregation
Adath Jeshurun Congregation (also Adath Jeshurun Synagogue) is a Conservative Jewish synagogue located in Minnetonka, Minnesota with about 1,200 members. Founded in 1884, Olitzky, Kerry M.; Raphael, Marc Lee. ''The American Synagogue: A Historic ...
in
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...
.
Salinger's mother, Marie (née Jillich), was born in
Atlantic, Iowa
Atlantic is a city in and the county seat of Cass County, Iowa, United States, located along the East Nishnabotna River. The population was 6,792 in the 2020 census, a decline from the 7,257 population in 2000.
History
Atlantic was founded ...
, of German, Irish, and Scottish descent,"J. D. Salinger". LitFinder Contemporary Collection. Gale, 2007. Web. November 9, 2010. "but changed her first name to Miriam to appease her in-laws" and considered herself Jewish after marrying Salinger's father. Salinger did not learn that his mother was not of Jewish ancestry until just after he celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. He had one sibling, an older sister, Doris (1912–2001).
In his youth, Salinger attended public schools on the West Side of Manhattan. In 1932, the family moved to
Park Avenue
Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenu ...
, and Salinger enrolled at the
McBurney School
McBurney School was a boys college-preparatory school in Manhattan run by the YMCA of Greater New York. Its name commemorates Robert Ross McBurney, a prominent New York YMCA leader during the late 19th century.
Among its alumni are actors Henry W ...
, a nearby private school. Salinger had trouble fitting in there and took measures to conform, such as calling himself Jerry. His family called him Sonny.Hathcock, Barrett. "J.D. Salinger" At McBurney, he managed the fencing team, wrote for the school newspaper and appeared in plays. He "showed an innate talent for drama," though his father opposed the idea of his becoming an actor. His parents then enrolled him at
Valley Forge Military Academy
Valley Forge Military Academy and College (VFMAC) is a private boarding school (grades 7–12) and military junior college in Wayne, Pennsylvania. It follows in the traditional military school format with army traditions. Though military in ...
in
Wayne, Pennsylvania
Wayne is an unincorporated community centered in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on the Main Line, a series of highly affluent Philadelphia suburbs located along the railroad tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad and one of the wealthiest areas ...
. Salinger began writing stories "under the covers t night with the aid of a flashlight". He was the literary editor of the class yearbook, ''Crossed Sabres'', and participated in the glee club, aviation club, French club, and the
Non-Commissioned Officers
A non-commissioned officer (NCO) is a military officer who has not pursued a commission. Non-commissioned officers usually earn their position of authority by promotion through the enlisted ranks. (Non-officers, which includes most or all enli ...
Club.
Salinger's Valley Forge
201 file :''See "service record" for other countries version of the personnel file''
A military personnel file (also called a 201 file in the United States Army) is a set of documents maintained by the US government for members of the United States armed for ...
says he was a "mediocre" student, and his recorded IQ between 111 and 115 was slightly above average. He graduated in 1936. Salinger started his freshman year at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
in 1936. He considered studying
special education
Special education (known as special-needs education, aided education, exceptional education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, or SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates th ...
but dropped out the following spring. That fall, his father urged him to learn about the meat-importing business, and he went to work at a company in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
and
Bydgoszcz
Bydgoszcz ( , , ; german: Bromberg) is a city in northern Poland, straddling the meeting of the River Vistula with its left-bank tributary, the Brda. With a city population of 339,053 as of December 2021 and an urban agglomeration with more ...
, Poland. Surprisingly, Salinger went willingly, but he was so disgusted by the slaughterhouses that he firmly decided to embark on a different career. His disgust for the meat business and rejection of his father likely influenced his vegetarianism as an adult. He left Austria one month before it was annexed by Nazi Germany on March 12, 1938.
In the fall of 1938, Salinger attended
Ursinus College
Ursinus College is a private liberal arts college in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1869 and occupies a 170-acre campus.
History
19th century
In 1867, members of the German Reformed Church began plans to establish a college w ...
in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and wrote a column called "skipped diploma," which included movie reviews. He dropped out after one semester. In 1939, Salinger attended the
Columbia University School of General Studies
The School of General Studies, Columbia University (GS) is a liberal arts college
A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on undergraduate study in liberal arts and sciences. Such c ...
in Manhattan, where he took a writing class taught by
Whit Burnett
Whit Burnett (August 14, 1899 – April 22, 1973) was an American writer and educator who founded and edited the literary magazine '' Story''. In the 1940s, ''Story'' was an important magazine in that it published the first or early works of many w ...
, longtime editor of ''
Story
Story or stories may refer to:
Common uses
* Story, a narrative (an account of imaginary or real people and events)
** Short story, a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting
* Story (American English), or storey (British ...
'' magazine. According to Burnett, Salinger did not distinguish himself until a few weeks before the end of the second semester, at which point "he suddenly came to life" and completed three stories. Burnett told Salinger that his stories were skillful and accomplished, accepting "The Young Folks," a
vignette
Vignette may refer to:
* Vignette (entertainment), a sketch in a sketch comedy
* Vignette (graphic design), decorative designs in books (originally in the form of leaves and vines) to separate sections or chapters
* Vignette (literature), short, i ...
about several aimless youths, for publication in ''Story''. Salinger's debut short story was published in the magazine's March–April 1940 issue. Burnett became Salinger's mentor, and they corresponded for several years.
World War II
In 1942, Salinger started dating
Oona O'Neill
Oona O'Neill, Lady Chaplin (14 May 1925 – 27 September 1991) was an actress who was the daughter of Irish-American playwright Eugene O'Neill and English-born writer Agnes Boulton, and the fourth and last wife of English actor and film-maker Ch ...
, daughter of the playwright
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier ...
. Despite finding her immeasurably self-absorbed (he confided to a friend that "Little Oona's hopelessly in love with little Oona"), he called her often and wrote her long letters. Their relationship ended when Oona began seeing
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consider ...
, whom she eventually married. In late 1941, Salinger briefly worked on a
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
cruise ship
Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports-of-call, where passengers may go on tours known as "s ...
, serving as an activity director and possibly a performer.
The same year, Salinger began submitting short stories to ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
''. The magazine rejected seven of his stories that year, including "Lunch for Three," "Monologue for a Watery Highball," and "I Went to School with Adolf Hitler." But in December 1941, it accepted "
Slight Rebellion off Madison
"Slight Rebellion off Madison" is a short story written by J. D. Salinger in 1941 and first published in the December 21, 1946 issue of ''The New Yorker''. It would become the basis for his famous novel ''The Catcher in the Rye'', which contains a ...
," a Manhattan-set story about a disaffected teenager named
Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield (identified as "Holden Morrisey Caulfield" in the story "Slight Rebellion Off Madison" , and "Holden V. Caulfield" in ''The Catcher In The Rye'') is a fictional character in the works of author J. D. Salinger. He's most famous ...
with "pre-war jitters". When Japan carried out the
attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...
that month, the story was rendered "unpublishable." Salinger was devastated. The story appeared in ''The New Yorker'' in 1946. In the spring of 1942, several months after the U.S. entered
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
Utah Beach
Utah, commonly known as Utah Beach, was the code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944 (D-Day), during World War II. The westernmost of the five code-named la ...
on
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...
, in the
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted fr ...
, and the
Battle of Hürtgen Forest
The Battle of Hürtgen Forest (german: Schlacht im Hürtgenwald) was a series of battles fought from 19 September to 16 December 1944, between American and German forces on the Western Front during World War II, in the Hürtgen Forest, a are ...
.
During the campaign from Normandy into Germany, Salinger arranged to meet with
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
, a writer who had influenced him and was then working as a war correspondent in Paris. Salinger was impressed with Hemingway's friendliness and modesty, finding him more "soft" than his gruff public persona. Hemingway was impressed by Salinger's writing and remarked: "Jesus, he has a helluva talent." The two began corresponding; Salinger wrote to Hemingway in July 1946 that their talks were among his few positive memories of the war, and added that he was working on a play about Caulfield and hoped to play the part himself.
Salinger was assigned to a
counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...
unit also known as the
Ritchie Boys
The Ritchie Boys were a special collection of soldiers, with sizable numbers of German-Austrian recruits, of Military Intelligence Service officers and enlisted men of World War II who were trained at Camp Ritchie in Washington County, Maryland. ...
, in which he used his proficiency in French and German to interrogate
prisoners of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold priso ...
. In April 1945 he entered Kaufering IV concentration camp, a subcamp of Dachau. Salinger earned the rank of Staff Sergeant and served in five campaigns. His war experiences affected him emotionally. He was hospitalized for a few weeks for combat stress reaction after Germany was defeated, and later told his daughter: "You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live." Both his biographers speculate that Salinger drew upon his wartime experiences in several stories, such as " For Esmé—with Love and Squalor", which is narrated by a traumatized soldier. Salinger continued to write while serving in the army, publishing several stories in slick magazines such as ''
Collier's
''Collier's'' was an American general interest magazine founded in 1888 by Peter Fenelon Collier. It was launched as ''Collier's Once a Week'', then renamed in 1895 as ''Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal'', shortened in 1905 to ''Collie ...
'' and ''
The Saturday Evening Post
''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...
''. He also continued to submit stories to ''The New Yorker'', but with little success; it rejected all of his submissions from 1944 to 1946, including a group of 15 poems in 1945.
Postwar years
After Germany's defeat, Salinger signed up for a six-month period of "
Denazification
Denazification (german: link=yes, Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by remov ...
" duty in Germany for the
Counterintelligence Corps
The Counter Intelligence Corps (Army CIC) was a World War II and early Cold War intelligence agency within the United States Army consisting of highly trained special agents. Its role was taken over by the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps in 1961 and ...
. He lived in Weißenburg and, soon after, married Sylvia Welter. He brought her to the United States in April 1946, but the marriage fell apart after eight months and Sylvia returned to Germany. In 1972, Salinger's daughter Margaret was with him when he received a letter from Sylvia. He looked at the envelope, and, without reading it, tore it apart. It was the first time he had heard from her since the breakup, but as Margaret put it, "when he was finished with a person, he was through with them."
In 1946,
Whit Burnett
Whit Burnett (August 14, 1899 – April 22, 1973) was an American writer and educator who founded and edited the literary magazine '' Story''. In the 1940s, ''Story'' was an important magazine in that it published the first or early works of many w ...
agreed to help Salinger publish a collection of his short stories through ''Story'' Press's Lippincott Imprint. The collection, ''The Young Folks'', was to consist of 20 stories—ten, like the title story and "Slight Rebellion off Madison", already in print and ten previously unpublished. Though Burnett implied the book would be published and even negotiated Salinger a $1,000 advance, Lippincott overruled Burnett and rejected the book. Salinger blamed Burnett for the book's failure to see print, and the two became estranged.
By the late 1940s, Salinger had become an avid follower of
Zen Buddhism
Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...
, to the point that he "gave reading lists on the subject to his dates" and arranged a meeting with Buddhist scholar
D. T. Suzuki
, self-rendered in 1894 as "Daisetz", was a Japanese-American Buddhist monk, essayist, philosopher, religious scholar, translator, and writer. He was a scholar and author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in s ...
.
In 1947, Salinger submitted a short story, "The Bananafish", to ''The New Yorker.'' William Maxwell, the magazine's fiction editor, was impressed enough with "the singular quality of the story" that the magazine asked Salinger to continue revising it. He spent a year reworking it with ''New Yorker'' editors and the magazine published it, now titled " A Perfect Day for Bananafish", in the January 31, 1948, issue. The magazine thereon offered Salinger a "first-look" contract that allowed it
right of first refusal
Right of first refusal (ROFR or RFR) is a contractual right that gives its holder the option to enter a business transaction with the owner of something, according to specified terms, before the owner is entitled to enter into that transaction ...
on any future stories. The critical acclaim accorded "Bananafish" coupled with problems Salinger had with stories being altered by the "slicks" led him to publish almost exclusively in ''The New Yorker.'' "Bananafish" was also the first of Salinger's published stories to feature the
Glasses
Glasses, also known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are vision eyewear, with lenses (clear or tinted) mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person's eyes, typically utilizing a bridge over the nose and hinged arms (known as temples or ...
, a fictional family consisting of two retired
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
performers and their seven precocious children: Seymour, Buddy, Boo Boo, Walt, Waker, Zooey, and Franny. Salinger published seven stories about the Glasses, developing a detailed family history and focusing particularly on Seymour, the brilliant but troubled eldest child.
In the early 1940s, Salinger confided in a letter to Burnett that he was eager to sell the film rights to some of his stories to achieve financial security. According to Ian Hamilton, Salinger was disappointed when "rumblings from Hollywood" over his 1943 short story "
The Varioni Brothers
"The Varioni Brothers" is a short story by J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger (; January 1, 1919 January 27, 2010) was an American author best known for his 1951 novel ''The Catcher in the Rye''. Salinger got his start in 1940, before serving ...
" came to nothing. Therefore, he immediately agreed when, in mid-1948, independent film producer
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn (born Szmuel Gelbfisz; yi, שמואל געלבפֿיש; August 27, 1882 (claimed) January 31, 1974), also known as Samuel Goldfish, was a Polish-born American film producer. He was best known for being the founding contributor a ...
offered to buy the film rights to his short story " Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut." Though Salinger sold the story with the hope—in the words of his agent Dorothy Olding—that it "would make a good movie", critics lambasted the film upon its release in 1949.Berg, A. Scott. ''Goldwyn: A Biography.'' New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989. . p. 446. Renamed '' My Foolish Heart'' and starring
Dana Andrews
Carver Dana Andrews (January 1, 1909 – December 17, 1992) was an American film actor who became a major star in what is now known as film noir. A leading man during the 1940s, he continued acting in less prestigious roles and character parts ...
and
Susan Hayward
Susan Hayward (born Edythe Marrenner; June 30, 1917 – March 14, 1975) was an American film actress, best known for her film portrayals of women that were based on true stories.
After working as a fashion model for the Walter Thornton Model A ...
, the film departed to such an extent from Salinger's story that Goldwyn biographer
A. Scott Berg
Andrew Scott Berg (born December 4, 1949) is an American biographer. After graduating from Princeton University in 1971, Berg expanded his senior thesis on editor Maxwell Perkins into a full-length biography, ''Max Perkins: Editor of Genius'' (1 ...
called it a " bastardization." As a result of this experience, Salinger never again permitted film adaptations of his work. When
Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a former French actress, singer and model. Famous for portraying sexually emancipated characters with hedonistic lifestyles, she was one of the ...
wanted to buy the rights to " A Perfect Day for Bananafish", Salinger refused but told his friend Lillian Ross, longtime staff writer for ''The New Yorker,'' "She's a cute, talented, lost ''enfante,'' and I'm tempted to accommodate her, ''pour le sport.''"
''The Catcher in the Rye''
In the 1940s, Salinger confided to several people that he was working on a novel featuring Holden Caulfield, the teenage protagonist of his short story "Slight Rebellion off Madison", and
Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily ...
published ''
The Catcher in the Rye
''The Catcher in the Rye'' is an American novel by J. D. Salinger that was partially published in serial form from 1945–46 before being novelized in 1951. Originally intended for adults, it is often read by adolescents for its themes of angst ...
'' on July 16, 1951. The novel's plot is simple, detailing 16-year-old Holden's experiences in New York City after his fourth expulsion and departure from an elite
college preparatory school
A college-preparatory school (usually shortened to preparatory school or prep school) is a type of secondary school. The term refers to public, private independent or parochial schools primarily designed to prepare students for higher education ...
. The book is more notable for the persona and testimonial voice of its
first-person narrator
A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from their own point of view using the first person It may be narrated by a first-person protagonist (or other focal character), first-person re-teller ...
, Holden.Nandel, Alan. "The Significance of Holden Caulfield's Testimony." Reprinted in Bloom, Harold, ed. ''Modern Critical Interpretations: J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.'' Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000. pp. 75–89. He serves as an insightful but
unreliable narrator
An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''. While unrel ...
who expounds on the importance of loyalty, the "phoniness" of adulthood, and his own duplicity. In a 1953 interview with a high school newspaper, Salinger admitted that the novel was "sort of" autobiographical, explaining, "My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book, and it was a great relief telling people about it."
Initial reactions to the book were mixed, ranging from ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' hailing ''Catcher'' as "an unusually brilliant first novel" to denigrations of the book's monotonous language and Holden's "immorality and perversion"Whitfield, Stephen J "Raise High the Bookshelves, Censors!" (book review),
The Virginia Quarterly Review
The ''Virginia Quarterly Review'' is a quarterly literary magazine that was established in 1925 by James Southall Wilson, at the request of University of Virginia president E. A. Alderman. This ''"National Journal of Literature and Discussion" ...
, Spring 2002. Retrieved November 27, 2007. In a review of the book in ''
The Christian Science Monitor
''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...
,'' the reviewer found the book unfit "for children to read," writing that they would be influenced by Holden, "as too easily happens when immorality and perversion are recounted by writers of talent whose work is countenanced in the name of art or good intention." (he uses religious slurs and freely discusses casual sex and prostitution). The novel was a popular success; within two months of its publication, it had been reprinted eight times. It spent 30 weeks on the ''New York Times'' Bestseller list. The book's initial success was followed by a brief lull in popularity, but by the late 1950s, according to his biographer Ian Hamilton, it had "become the book all brooding adolescents had to buy, the indispensable manual from which cool styles of disaffectation could be borrowed." It has been compared to
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
's ''
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' or as it is known in more recent editions, ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United St ...
.'' Newspapers began publishing articles about the "Catcher Cult", and the novel was banned in several countries—as well as some U.S. schools—because of its subject matter and what ''
Catholic World
''The Catholic World'' was a periodical founded by Paulist Father Isaac Thomas Hecker in April 1865. It was published by the Paulist Fathers for over a century. According to Paulist Press, Hecker "wanted to create an intellectual journal for a g ...
'' reviewer Riley Hughes called an "excessive use of amateur swearing and coarse language". According to one angry parent's tabulation, 237 instances of "goddamn", 58 uses of "bastard", 31 "Chrissakes", and one incident of flatulence constituted what was wrong with Salinger's book.
In the 1970s, several U.S. high school teachers who assigned the book were fired or forced to resign. A 1979 study of censorship noted that ''The Catcher in the Rye'' "had the dubious distinction of being at once the most frequently censored book across the nation and the second-most frequently taught novel in public high schools" (after
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social ...
's ''
Of Mice and Men
''Of Mice and Men'' is a novella written by John Steinbeck. Published in 1937, it narrates the experiences of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in California in search of new job o ...
''). The book remains widely read; as of 2004, it was selling about 250,000 copies per year, "with total worldwide sales over 10 million copies".
Mark David Chapman
Mark David Chapman (born May 10, 1955) is an American man who murdered former Beatles member John Lennon in New York City on December 8, 1980. As Lennon walked into the archway of his apartment building at The Dakota, Chapman shot Lennon from a ...
, who shot singer-songwriter
John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
in December 1980, was obsessed with the book. His main motive was his frustration with Lennon's lifestyle and public statements, as well as delusions he suffered related to Holden Caulfield.
In the wake of its 1950s success, Salinger received (and rejected) numerous offers to adapt ''The Catcher in the Rye'' for the screen, including one from
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn (born Szmuel Gelbfisz; yi, שמואל געלבפֿיש; August 27, 1882 (claimed) January 31, 1974), also known as Samuel Goldfish, was a Polish-born American film producer. He was best known for being the founding contributor a ...
. Since its publication, there has been sustained interest in the novel among filmmakers, with
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-American filmmaker. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Holl ...
,
Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein (; born March 19, 1952) is an American former film producer and convicted sex offender. He and his brother, Bob Weinstein, co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent films inclu ...
, and
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...
among those seeking to secure the rights. In the 1970s Salinger said, "
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis (born Joseph Levitch; March 16, 1926 – August 20, 2017) was an American comedian, actor, singer, filmmaker and humanitarian. As his contributions to comedy and charity made him a global figure in popular culture, pop culture ...
tried for years to get his hands on the part of Holden." Salinger repeatedly refused, and in 1999 his ex-lover
Joyce Maynard
Daphne Joyce Maynard (born November 5, 1953) is an American novelist and journalist. She began her career in journalism in the 1970s, writing for several publications, most notably '' Seventeen'' magazine and ''The New York Times''. Maynard contr ...
concluded, "The only person who might ever have played Holden Caulfield would have been J. D. Salinger."
Writing in the 1950s and move to Cornish
In a July 1951 profile in ''Book of the Month Club News,'' Salinger's friend and ''New Yorker'' editor William Maxwell asked Salinger about his literary influences. He replied, "A writer, when he's asked to discuss his craft, ought to get up and call out in a loud voice just the names of the writers he loves. I love
Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typ ...
,
Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flauber ...
,
Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
,
Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...
,
Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...
,
Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...
,
O'Casey
O'Casey is a common variation of the Gaelic ''cathasaigh'', meaning ''vigilant'' or ''watchful'', with the added anglicized prefix ''Irish name#Surnames and prefixes, O of the Gaelic ''Ó'', meaning ''grandson'' or ''descendant''. At least six ...
,
Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogni ...
Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...
,
Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he start ...
,
Burns Burns may refer to:
* Burn, an injury (plural)
People:
* Burns (surname), includes list of people and characters
Business:
* Burns London, a British guitar maker
Places:
;In the United States
* Burns, Colorado, unincorporated community in Eagle ...
Jane Austen
Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...
,
Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
,
Blake
Blake is a surname which originated from Old English. Its derivation is uncertain; it could come from "blac", a nickname for someone who had dark hair or skin, or from "blaac", a nickname for someone with pale hair or skin. Another theory, presuma ...
,
Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake ...
. I won't name any living writers. I don't think it's right" (although O'Casey was in fact alive at the time). In letters from the 1940s, Salinger expressed his admiration of three living, or recently deceased, writers:
Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and ...
,
Ring Lardner
Ringgold Wilmer Lardner (March 6, 1885 – September 25, 1933) was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical writings on sports, marriage, and the theatre. His contemporaries Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Wo ...
, and
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...
; Ian Hamilton wrote that Salinger even saw himself for some time as "Fitzgerald's successor". Salinger's " A Perfect Day for Bananafish" has an ending similar to that of Fitzgerald's story "
May Day
May Day is a European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. Festivities may also be held the night before, known as May Eve. T ...
."
Salinger wrote friends of a momentous change in his life in 1952, after several years of practicing Zen Buddhism, while reading ''
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
''The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna'' is an English translation of the Bengali religious text '' Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita'' by Swami Nikhilananda. The text records conversations of Ramakrishna with his disciples, devotees and visitors, record ...
'' about
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
religious teacher Sri Ramakrishna. He became an adherent of Ramakrishna's
Advaita Vedanta
''Advaita Vedanta'' (; sa, अद्वैत वेदान्त, ) is a Hinduism, Hindu sādhanā, a path of spiritual discipline and experience, and the oldest extant tradition of the Āstika and nāstika, orthodox Hindu school Ved ...
Hinduism, which advocated celibacy for those seeking enlightenment, and detachment from human responsibilities such as family. Salinger's religious studies were reflected in some of his writing. The story "
Teddy
Teddy is an English language given name, usually a hypocorism of Edward or Theodore. It may refer to:
People Nickname
* Teddy Atlas (born 1956), boxing trainer and fight commentator
* Teddy Bourne (born 1948), British Olympic epee fencer
* Tedd ...
" features a ten-year-old child who expresses
Vedantic
''Vedanta'' (; sa, वेदान्त, ), also ''Uttara Mīmāṃsā'', is one of the six (''āstika'') schools of Hindu philosophy. Literally meaning "end of the Vedas", Vedanta reflects ideas that emerged from, or were aligned with, t ...
insights. He also studied the writings of Ramakrishna's disciple
Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda (; ; 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta (), was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the intr ...
; in "
Hapworth 16, 1924 "Hapworth 16, 1924" is a short story by the American author J. D. Salinger, the last original work published in his lifetime. It appeared in the June 19, 1965, edition of ''The New Yorker'', infamously taking up almost the entire magazine. It is th ...
", Seymour Glass calls him "one of the most exciting, original and best-equipped giants of this century."
In 1953, Salinger published a collection of seven stories from ''The New Yorker'' (including "Bananafish"), as well as two the magazine had rejected. The collection was published as '' Nine Stories'' in the United States, and " For Esmé—with Love and Squalor" in the UK, after one of Salinger's best-known stories. The book received grudgingly positive reviews, and was a financial success—"remarkably so for a volume of short stories," according to Hamilton. ''Nine Stories'' spent three months on the ''New York Times'' Bestseller list. Already tightening his grip on publicity, Salinger refused to allow publishers of the collection to depict his characters in dust jacket illustrations, lest readers form preconceived notions of them.
As ''The Catcher in the Rye'''s notability grew, Salinger gradually withdrew from public view. In 1953, he moved from an apartment at 300 East 57th Street, New York, to
Cornish, New Hampshire
Cornish is a town in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,616 at the 2020 census. Cornish has four covered bridges. Each August, it is home to the Cornish Fair.
History
The town was granted in 1763 and contained a ...
. Early in his time at Cornish he was relatively sociable, particularly with students at Windsor High School. Salinger invited them to his house frequently to play records and talk about problems at school. One such student, Shirley Blaney, persuaded Salinger to be interviewed for the high school page of ''The Daily Eagle,'' the city paper. After the interview appeared prominently in the newspaper's editorial section, Salinger cut off all contact with the high schoolers without explanation. He was also seen less frequently around town, meeting only one close friend—jurist
Learned Hand
Billings Learned Hand ( ; January 27, 1872 – August 18, 1961) was an American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher. He served as a federal trial judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1909 to 1924 a ...
—with any regularity. He also began to publish less often. After ''Nine Stories'', he published only four stories in the rest of the decade, two in 1955 and one each in 1957 and 1959.
Second marriage, family, and spiritual beliefs
In February 1955, at age 36, Salinger married Claire Douglas (b. 1933), a
Radcliffe
Radcliffe or Radcliff may refer to:
Places
* Radcliffe Line, a border between India and Pakistan
United Kingdom
* Radcliffe, Greater Manchester
** Radcliffe Tower, the remains of a medieval manor house in the town
** Radcliffe tram stop
* ...
student who was art critic
Robert Langton Douglas
Robert Langton Douglas (1864–1951) was a British art critic, lecturer, and author, and director of the National Gallery of Ireland.
Biography
Douglas was born in Davenham, Cheshire, and educated at New College, Oxford, New College, University o ...
's daughter. They had two children, Margaret Salinger (also known as Peggy – born December 10, 1955) and Matthew "Matt" Salinger (born February 13, 1960). Margaret Salinger wrote in her memoir ''Dream Catcher'' that she believes her parents would not have married, nor would she have been born, had her father not read the teachings of
Lahiri Mahasaya
Charan Lahiri (30 September 1828 – 26 September 1895), best known as Lahiri Mahasaya, was an Indian yogi guru who founded the Kriya Yoga school. In 1861, his non-physical master Mahavatar Babaji appeared to him, ordering him to reviv ...
, a guru of
Paramahansa Yogananda
Paramahansa Yogananda (born Mukunda Lal Ghosh; January 5, 1893March 7, 1952) was an Indian Hindu monk, yogi and guru who introduced millions to the teachings of meditation and Kriya Yoga through his organization Self-Realization Fellowsh ...
, which brought the possibility of enlightenment to those following the path of the "householder" (a married person with children). After their marriage, Salinger and Claire were initiated into the path of Kriya yoga in a small store-front Hindu temple in Washington, D.C., during the summer of 1955. They received a mantra and breathing exercise to practice for ten minutes twice a day.
Salinger also insisted that Claire drop out of school and live with him, only four months shy of graduation, which she did. Certain elements of the story "Franny," published in January 1955, are based on his relationship with Claire, including her ownership of the book '' The Way of the Pilgrim''. Because of their isolated location in Cornish and Salinger's proclivities, they hardly saw other people for long stretches of time. Claire was also frustrated by Salinger's ever-changing religious beliefs. Though she committed herself to Kriya yoga, Salinger chronically left Cornish to work on a story "for several weeks only to return with the piece he was supposed to be finishing all undone or destroyed and some new 'ism' we had to follow." Claire believed "it was to cover the fact that Jerry had just destroyed or junked or couldn't face the quality of, or couldn't face publishing, what he had created."
After abandoning Kriya yoga, Salinger tried
Dianetics
Dianetics (from Greek ''dia'', meaning "through", and ''nous'', meaning "mind") is a set of pseudoscientific ideas and practices regarding the metaphysical relationship between the mind and body created by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubba ...
(the forerunner of
Scientology
Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by American author L. Ron Hubbard, and an associated movement. It has been variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious movement. The most recent published census data indi ...
), even meeting its founder
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) was an American author, primarily of science fiction and fantasy stories, who is best known for having founded the Church of Scientology. In 1950, Hubbard authored '' Dianeti ...
, but according to Claire was quickly disenchanted with it. This was followed by an adherence to a number of spiritual, medical, and nutritional belief systems, including
Christian Science
Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally know ...
,
Edgar Cayce
Edgar Cayce (; 18 March 1877 – 3 January 1945) was an American clairvoyant who claimed to channel his higher self while in a trance-like state. His words were recorded by his friend, Al Layne; his wife, Gertrude Evans, and later by his s ...
,
homeopathy
Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a dis ...
,
acupuncture
Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine and a component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in which thin needles are inserted into the body. Acupuncture is a pseudoscience; the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientifi ...
, and
macrobiotics
A macrobiotic diet (or macrobiotics) is a fad diet based on ideas about types of food drawn from Zen Buddhism. The diet tries to balance the supposed yin and yang elements of food and cookware. Major principles of macrobiotic diets are to reduce ...
.
Salinger's family life was further marked by discord after his first child was born; according to Margaret's book, Claire felt that her daughter had replaced her in Salinger's affections. The infant Margaret was sick much of the time, but Salinger, having embraced Christian Science, refused to take her to a doctor. According to Margaret, her mother admitted to her years later that she went "over the edge" in the winter of 1957 and had made plans to murder her and then commit suicide. Claire had supposedly intended to do it during a trip to New York City with Salinger, but she instead acted on a sudden impulse to take Margaret from the hotel and run away. After a few months, Salinger persuaded her to return to Cornish.
The Salingers divorced in 1967, with Claire getting custody of the children. Salinger remained close to his family. He built a new house for himself across the road and visited frequently.
Nancy Clark Reynolds
Nancy Clark Reynolds (June 26, 1927 – May 23, 2022) was an American television journalist who went on to become a press secretary for Ronald Reagan and was a founder of the Washington, D.C. lobbying firm Wexler, Reynolds, Harrison & Schule.
...
had been a love interest of Salinger.
Last publications and Maynard relationship
Salinger published ''
Franny and Zooey
''Franny ''and'' Zooey'' is a book by American author J. D. Salinger which comprises his short story "Franny" and novella ''Zooey'' . The two works were published together as a book in 1961, having originally appeared in ''The New Yorker'' in 19 ...
'' in 1961, and '' Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction'' in 1963. Each book contained two short stories or novellas published in ''The New Yorker'' between 1955 and 1959, and were the only stories Salinger had published since ''Nine Stories.'' On the dust jacket of ''Franny and Zooey,'' Salinger wrote, in reference to his interest in privacy: "It is my rather subversive opinion that a writer's feelings of anonymity-obscurity are the second most valuable property on loan to him during his working years."
On September 15, 1961, ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine devoted its cover to Salinger. In an article that profiled his "life of recluse", the magazine reported that the Glass family series "is nowhere near completion ... Salinger intends to write a Glass trilogy." But Salinger published only one other thing after that: "
Hapworth 16, 1924 "Hapworth 16, 1924" is a short story by the American author J. D. Salinger, the last original work published in his lifetime. It appeared in the June 19, 1965, edition of ''The New Yorker'', infamously taking up almost the entire magazine. It is th ...
", a novella in the form of a long letter by seven-year-old Seymour Glass to his parents from summer camp. His first new work in six years, the novella took up most of the June 19, 1965, issue of ''The New Yorker'', and was universally panned by critics. Around this time, Salinger had isolated Claire from friends and relatives and made her—in Margaret Salinger's words—"a virtual prisoner." Claire separated from him in September 1966; their divorce was finalized on October 3, 1967.
In 1972, at age 53, Salinger had a relationship with 18-year-old
Joyce Maynard
Daphne Joyce Maynard (born November 5, 1953) is an American novelist and journalist. She began her career in journalism in the 1970s, writing for several publications, most notably '' Seventeen'' magazine and ''The New York Times''. Maynard contr ...
that lasted for nine months. Maynard was already an experienced writer for ''
Seventeen
Seventeen or 17 may refer to:
*17 (number), the natural number following 16 and preceding 18
* one of the years 17 BC, AD 17, 1917, 2017
Literature
Magazines
* ''Seventeen'' (American magazine), an American magazine
* ''Seventeen'' (Japanese m ...
'' magazine. ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' had asked her to write an article that, when published as "An Eighteen-Year-Old Looks Back On Life" on April 23, 1972, made her a celebrity. Salinger wrote her a letter warning about living with fame. After exchanging 25 letters, Maynard moved in with Salinger the summer after her freshman year at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
. Maynard did not return to Yale that fall, and spent ten months as a guest in Salinger's house. The relationship ended, he told Margaret at a family outing, because Maynard wanted children, and he felt he was too old. In her autobiography, Maynard paints a different picture, saying Salinger abruptly ended the relationship, sent her away and refused to take her back. She had dropped out of Yale to be with him, even forgoing a scholarship. Maynard came to find out that Salinger had begun several relationships with young women by exchanging letters. One of them was his last wife, a nurse who was already engaged to be married to someone else when she met him. In a 2021 ''Vanity Fair'' article, Maynard wrote,
While he was living with Maynard, Salinger continued to write in a disciplined fashion, a few hours every morning. According to Maynard, by 1972 he had completed two new novels. In a 1974 interview with ''The New York Times'', he said, "There is a marvelous peace in not publishing ... I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure." According to Maynard, he saw publication as "a damned interruption". In her memoir, Margaret Salinger describes the detailed filing system her father had for his unpublished manuscripts: "A red mark meant, if I die before I finish my work, publish this 'as is,' blue meant publish but edit first, and so on." A neighbor said that Salinger told him that he had written 15 unpublished novels.
Salinger's final interview was in June 1980 with Betty Eppes of '' The Baton Rouge Advocate'', which has been represented somewhat differently, depending on the secondary source. By one account, Eppes was an attractive young woman who misrepresented herself as an aspiring novelist, and managed to record audio of the interview as well as take several photographs of Salinger, both without his knowledge or consent. In a separate account, emphasis is placed on her contact by letter writing from the local post office, and Salinger's personal initiative to cross the bridge to meet Eppes, who during the interview made clear she was a reporter and did, at the close, take pictures of Salinger as he departed. According to the first account, the interview ended "disastrously" when a passerby from Cornish attempted to shake Salinger's hand, at which point Salinger became enraged. A further account of the interview published in ''
The Paris Review
''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...
'', purportedly by Eppes, has been disowned by her and separately ascribed as a derived work of ''Review'' editor
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 – September 25, 2003) was an American writer. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found ''The Paris Review'', as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. He was also known for " ...
. In an interview published in August 2021, Eppes said that she did record her conversation with Salinger without his knowledge but that she was plagued by guilt over it. She said that she had turned down several lucrative offers for the tape, the only known recording of Salinger's voice, and that she had changed her will to stipulate that it be placed along with her body in the crematorium.
Salinger was romantically involved with television actress
Elaine Joyce
Elaine Joyce (born Elaine Joyce Pinchot) is an American actress.
Early life and education
Elaine Joyce Pinchot was born in Cleveland, Ohio, of Hungarian ancestry, the daughter of Iliclina (née Nagy) and Frank Pinchot.
Career
She made her fil ...
for several years in the 1980s. The relationship ended when he met Colleen O'Neill (b. June 11, 1959), a nurse and quiltmaker, whom he married around 1988. O'Neill, 40 years his junior, once told Margaret Salinger that she and Salinger were trying to have a child. They did not succeed.
Legal conflicts
Although Salinger tried to escape public exposure as much as possible, he struggled with unwanted attention from the media and the public. Readers of his work and students from nearby
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
often came to Cornish in groups, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. In May 1986 Salinger learned that the British writer Ian Hamilton intended to publish a biography that made extensive use of letters Salinger had written to other authors and friends. Salinger sued to stop the book's publication and in '' Salinger v. Random House'' the court ruled that Hamilton's extensive use of the letters, including quotation and paraphrasing, was not acceptable since the author's right to control publication overrode the right of fair use. Hamilton published ''In Search of J.D. Salinger: A Writing Life (1935–65)'' about his experience in tracking down information and the copyright fights over the planned biography.
An unintended consequence of the lawsuit was that many details of Salinger's private life, including that he had spent the last 20 years writing, in his words, "Just a work of fiction ... That's all" became public in the form of court transcripts. Excerpts from his letters were also widely disseminated, most notably a bitter remark written in response to
Oona O'Neill
Oona O'Neill, Lady Chaplin (14 May 1925 – 27 September 1991) was an actress who was the daughter of Irish-American playwright Eugene O'Neill and English-born writer Agnes Boulton, and the fourth and last wife of English actor and film-maker Ch ...
's marriage to
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consider ...
Dariush Mehrjui
Dariush Mehrju'i ( fa, داریوش مهرجویی , born 8 December 1939, also spelled as ''Mehrjui'', ''Mehrjoui'', Mehrjooi, and ''Mehrjuyi'') is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, producer, editor and a member of the Iranian Academy of ...
released the film '' Pari'', an unauthorized loose adaptation of ''Franny and Zooey''. The film could be distributed legally in Iran since it has no copyright relations with the United States, but Salinger had his lawyers block a planned 1998 screening of it at
Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...
. Mehrjui called Salinger's action "bewildering", explaining that he saw his film as "a kind of cultural exchange".
In 1996, Salinger gave a small publisher, Orchises Press, permission to publish "
Hapworth 16, 1924 "Hapworth 16, 1924" is a short story by the American author J. D. Salinger, the last original work published in his lifetime. It appeared in the June 19, 1965, edition of ''The New Yorker'', infamously taking up almost the entire magazine. It is th ...
". It was to be published that year and listings for it appeared at
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
and other booksellers. After a flurry of articles and critical reviews of the story appeared in the press, the publication date was pushed back repeatedly before apparently being canceled altogether. Amazon anticipated that Orchises would publish the story in January 2009, but at the time of his death, it was still listed as "unavailable".
In June 2009, Salinger consulted lawyers about the forthcoming U.S. publication of an unauthorized sequel to ''The Catcher in the Rye'', '' 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye'', by Swedish book publisher Fredrik Colting under the pseudonym J. D. California. The book appears to continue the story of Holden Caulfield. In Salinger's novel, Caulfield is 16, wandering the streets of New York after being expelled from private school; the California book features a 76-year-old man, "Mr. C", musing on having escaped his nursing home. Salinger's New York literary agent Phyllis Westberg told Britain's ''
Sunday Telegraph
''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings.
It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...
'', "The matter has been turned over to a lawyer". The fact that little was known about Colting and the book was set to be published by a new publishing imprint, Windupbird Publishing, gave rise to speculation in literary circles that the whole thing might be a hoax. District court judge
Deborah Batts
Deborah Anne Batts (April 13, 1947 – February 3, 2020) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. During Gay Pride Week in June 1994, Batts was sworn in as a United States distr ...
issued an
injunction
An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in pa ...
that prevented the book from being published in the U.S. Colting filed an appeal on July 23, 2009; it was heard in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on September 3, 2009. The case was settled in 2011 when Colting agreed not to publish or otherwise distribute the book, e-book or any other editions of ''60 Years Later'' in the U.S. or Canada until ''The Catcher in the Rye'' enters the public domain, to refrain from using the title ''Coming through the Rye'', dedicate the book to Salinger or refer to ''The Catcher in the Rye''. Colting remains free to sell the book in the rest of the world.
Later publicity
On October 23, 1992, ''The New York Times'' reported, "Not even a fire that consumed at least half his home on Tuesday could smoke out the reclusive J. D. Salinger, author of the classic novel of adolescent rebellion, ''The Catcher in the Rye''. Mr. Salinger is almost equally famous for having elevated privacy to an art form."
In 1999, 25 years after the end of their relationship, Maynard auctioned a series of letters Salinger had written her. Her memoir ''At Home in the World'' was published the same year. The book describes how Maynard's mother had consulted with her on how to appeal to Salinger by dressing in a childlike manner, and describes Maynard's relationship with him at length. In the ensuing controversy over the memoir and the letters, Maynard claimed that she was forced to auction the letters for financial reasons; she would have preferred to donate them to the
Beinecke Library
The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library () is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts. Es ...
at
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
. Software developer
Peter Norton
Peter Norton (born November 14, 1943) is an American programmer, software publisher, author, and philanthropist. He is best known for the computer programs and books that bear his name and portrait. Norton sold his software business to Syman ...
bought the letters for $156,500 and announced that he would return them to Salinger.
A year later, Margaret Salinger published ''Dream Catcher: A Memoir''. In it, she describes the harrowing control Salinger had over her mother and dispelled many of the Salinger myths established by Hamilton's book. One of Hamilton's arguments was that Salinger's experience with
post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...
left him psychologically scarred. Margaret Salinger allowed that "the few men who lived through Bloody Mortain, a battle in which her father fought, were left with much to sicken them, body and soul", but she also painted her father as a man immensely proud of his service record, maintaining his military haircut and service jacket, and moving about his compound (and town) in an old
Jeep
Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Moto ...
.
Both Margaret Salinger and Maynard characterized Salinger as a film buff. According to Margaret, his favorite movies included '' Gigi'' (1958), ''
The Lady Vanishes
''The Lady Vanishes'' is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1936 novel ''The Wheel Spins'' by Ethel L ...
'' (1938), '' The 39 Steps'' (1935; Phoebe's favorite movie in ''The Catcher in the Rye''), and the comedies of
W.C. Fields
WC or wc may refer to:
* Water closet or flush toilet
Arts and entertainment
* ''W.C.'' (film), an Irish feature film
* WC (band), a Polish punk rock band
* WC (rapper), a rapper from Los Angeles, California
* Westside Connection, former ...
,
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were a British-American Double act, comedy duo act during the early Classical Hollywood cinema, Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–19 ...
, and the
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) ...
. Predating VCRs, Salinger had an extensive collection of classic movies from the 1940s in 16 mm prints. Maynard wrote that "he loves movies, not films", and Margaret Salinger argued that her father's "worldview is, essentially, a product of the movies of his day. To my father, all Spanish speakers are Puerto Rican washerwomen, or the toothless, grinning-gypsy types in a Marx Brothers movie." Lillian Ross, a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' and longtime friend of Salinger's, wrote after his death, "Salinger loved movies, and he was more fun than anyone to discuss them with. He enjoyed watching actors work, and he enjoyed knowing them. (He loved
Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft (born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano; September 17, 1931 – June 6, 2005) was an American actress. Respected for her acting prowess and versatility, Bancroft received an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, tw ...
, hated
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn (born Audrey Kathleen Ruston; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian. Recognised as both a film and fashion icon, she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, t ...
, and said that he had seen ''
Grand Illusion
Grand Illusion may refer to:
Music
* ''Grand Illusion'' (album), by Nocturnal Rites, 2005
*'' The Grand Illusion'', a 1977 album by Styx, and its title song
*"Grand Illusion", a song from the 2016 album '' In the Now'' by Barry Gibb
*"Grand Illu ...
'' ten times.)"
Margaret also offered many insights into other Salinger myths, including her father's supposed longtime interest in
macrobiotics
A macrobiotic diet (or macrobiotics) is a fad diet based on ideas about types of food drawn from Zen Buddhism. The diet tries to balance the supposed yin and yang elements of food and cookware. Major principles of macrobiotic diets are to reduce ...
and involvement with alternative medicine and Eastern philosophies. A few weeks after ''Dream Catcher'' was published, Margaret's brother Matt discredited the memoir in a letter to ''
The New York Observer
''The New York Observer'' was a weekly newspaper printed from 1987 to 2016, when it ceased print publication and became the online-only newspaper ''Observer''. The media site focuses on culture, real estate, media, politics and the entertainmen ...
''. He disparaged his sister's "gothic tales of our supposed childhood" and wrote, "I can't say with any authority that she is consciously making anything up. I just know that I grew up in a very different house, with two very different parents from those my sister describes."
Death
Salinger died from natural causes at his home in
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
on January 27, 2010. He was 91. His literary representative told ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' that Salinger had broken his hip in May 2009, but that "his health had been excellent until a rather sudden decline after the new year." His third wife and widow, Colleen O'Neill Zakrzeski Salinger, and Salinger's son Matt became the
executor
An executor is someone who is responsible for executing, or following through on, an assigned task or duty. The feminine form, executrix, may sometimes be used.
Overview
An executor is a legal term referring to a person named by the maker of a ...
Salinger wrote all his life. His widow and son began preparing this work for publication after his death, announcing in 2019 that "all of what he wrote will at some point be shared" but that it was a major undertaking and not yet ready.
Literary style and themes
In a contributor's note Salinger gave to ''
Harper's Magazine
''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...
'' in 1946, he wrote, "I almost always write about very young people", a statement that has been called his
credo
In Christian liturgy, the credo (; Latin for "I believe") is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed – or its shorter version, the Apostles' Creed – in the Mass, either as a prayer, a spoken text, or sung as Gregorian chant or other musical setti ...
. Adolescents are featured or appear in all of Salinger's work, from his first published story, "
The Young Folks
"The Young Folks" is a song by Diana Ross and the Supremes, released as the B-side to "No Matter What Sign You Are" in 1969. Written by Allen Story and George Gordy, "The Young Folks" was included on the album '' Cream of the Crop'' (1969). In a ...
" (1940), to ''The Catcher in the Rye'' and his
Glass family
The Glass family are a fictional family appearing in several of J. D. Salinger's short fictions. All but one of the Glass family stories were first published in ''The New Yorker''. They appear in the short story collections '' Nine Stories'', '' ...
stories. In 1961, the critic
Alfred Kazin
Alfred Kazin (June 5, 1915 – June 5, 1998) was an American writer and literary critic. He wrote often about the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America.
Early life
Like many other New York Intellectuals, Alfred Kazin was ...
explained that Salinger's choice of teenagers as a subject matter was one reason for his appeal to young readers, but another was "a consciousness mong youthsthat he speaks for them and virtually ''to'' them, in a language that is peculiarly honest and their own, with a vision of things that capture their most secret judgments of the world." For this reason,
Norman Mailer
Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, activist, filmmaker and actor. In a career spanning over six decades, Mailer ...
once remarked that Salinger was "the greatest mind ever to stay in prep school." Salinger's language, especially his energetic, realistically sparse dialogue, was revolutionary at the time his first stories were published and was seen by several critics as "the most distinguishing thing" about his work.
Salinger identified closely with his characters, and used techniques such as interior monologue, letters, and extended telephone calls to display his gift for dialogue.
Recurring themes in Salinger's stories also connect to the ideas of innocence and adolescence, including the "corrupting influence of Hollywood and the world at large",Mondloch, Helen. "Squalor and Redemption: The Age of Salinger," The World & I. SIRS Knowledge Source: SIRS Renaissance. November 2003. Retrieved April 2, 2004. the disconnect between teenagers and "phony" adults, and the perceptive, precocious intelligence of children.
Contemporary critics discuss a clear progression over the course of Salinger's published work, as evidenced by the increasingly negative reviews each of his three post-''Catcher'' story collections received. Hamilton adheres to this view, arguing that while Salinger's early stories for the "slicks" boasted "tight, energetic" dialogue, they had also been formulaic and sentimental. It took the standards of ''The New Yorker'' editors, among them
William Shawn
William Shawn ('' né'' Chon; August 31, 1907 – December 8, 1992) was an American magazine editor who edited ''The New Yorker'' from 1952 until 1987.
Early life and education
Shawn was born William Chon on August 31, 1907, in Chicago, Illino ...
, to refine his writing into the "spare, teasingly mysterious, withheld" qualities of " A Perfect Day for Bananafish" (1948), ''The Catcher in the Rye'', and his stories of the early 1950s. By the late 1950s, as Salinger became more reclusive and involved in religious study, Hamilton notes that his stories became longer, less plot-driven, and increasingly filled with
digression Digression (''parékbasis'' in Greek, ''egressio'', ''digressio'' and ''excursion'' in Latin) is a section of a composition or speech that marks a temporary shift of subject; the digression ends when the writer or speaker returns to the main topic. ...
and parenthetical remarks.
Louis Menand
Louis Menand (; born January 21, 1952) is an American critic, essayist, and professor, best known for his Pulitzer-winning book ''The Metaphysical Club'' (2001), an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th and early 20th century America.
L ...
agrees, writing in ''The New Yorker'' that Salinger "stopped writing stories, in the conventional sense ... He seemed to lose interest in fiction as an art form—perhaps he thought there was something manipulative or inauthentic about literary device and authorial control." In recent years, some critics have defended certain post-''Nine Stories'' works by Salinger; in 2001,
Janet Malcolm
Janet Clara Malcolm (born Jana Klara Wienerová; July 8, 1934 – June 16, 2021) was an American writer, journalist on staff at ''The New Yorker'' magazine, and collagist. She was the author of '' Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession'' (19 ...
wrote in ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'' that "Zooey" "is arguably Salinger's masterpiece ... Rereading it and its companion piece 'Franny' is no less rewarding than rereading ''
The Great Gatsby
''The Great Gatsby'' is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts First-person narrative, first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious mil ...
''."
Influence
Salinger's writing has influenced several prominent writers, prompting
Harold Brodkey
Harold Brodkey (October 25, 1930 – January 26, 1996), born Aaron Roy Weintraub, was an American short-story writer and novelist.
Life
Brodkey was the second child born in Staunton, Illinois, to Max Weintraub and Celia Glazer Weintraub (1899 ...
(an
O. Henry Award
The O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American short-story writer O. Henry.
The ''PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories'' is an annual collection of the year's twenty best ...
-winning author) to say in 1991, "His is the most influential body of work in English prose by anyone since Hemingway." Of the writers in Salinger's generation,
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
-winning novelist
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth ...
, attested that "the short stories of J. D. Salinger really opened my eyes as to how you can weave fiction out of a set of events that seem almost unconnected, or very lightly connected ... eading Salingerstick in my mind as really having moved me a step up, as it were, toward knowing how to handle my own material." Menand has observed that the early stories of Pulitzer Prize-winner
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth (March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) was an American novelist and short story writer.
Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophicall ...
were affected by "Salinger's voice and comic timing".
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' in 1977 that reading Salinger's stories for the first time was a landmark experience, and that "nothing quite like it has happened to me since". Yates called Salinger "a man who used language as if it were pure energy beautifully controlled, and who knew exactly what he was doing in every silence as well as in every word."
Gordon Lish
Gordon Lish (born February 11, 1934 in Hewlett, New York) is an American writer. As a literary editor, he championed many American authors, particularly Raymond Carver, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel, Rick Bass, and Richard Ford. He is the father of t ...
's
O. Henry Award
The O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American short-story writer O. Henry.
The ''PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories'' is an annual collection of the year's twenty best ...
-winning short story "For Jeromé—With Love and Kisses" (1977, collected in ''What I Know So Far'', 1984) is a play on Salinger's "For Esmé—with Love and Squalor".
In 2001, Menand wrote in ''The New Yorker'' that "''Catcher in the Rye'' rewrites" among each new generation had become "a literary genre all its own". He classed among them
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, ''The ...
's ''
The Bell Jar
''The Bell Jar'' is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is semi-autobiographical with the names of places and people changed. The book ...
'' (1963),
Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of '' Hell's Angels'' (1967), a book for which he s ...
's ''
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream'' is a 1971 novel in the gonzo journalism style by Hunter S. Thompson. The book is a ''roman à clef'', rooted in autobiographical incidents. The story follo ...
'' (1971),
Jay McInerney
John Barrett "Jay" McInerney Jr. (; born January 13, 1955) is an American novelist, screenwriter, editor, and columnist. His novels include '' Bright Lights, Big City'', ''Ransom'', '' Story of My Life'', ''Brightness Falls'', and ''The Last of ...
Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He wrote the 2000 best-selling memoir ''A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius''. Eggers is also the founder of ''Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', a lite ...
's ''
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
''A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'' is a memoir by Dave Eggers released in 2000. It chronicles his stewardship of his younger brother Christopher "Toph" Eggers following the cancer-related deaths of his parents.
The book was a commerc ...
'' (2000). Writer
Aimee Bender
Aimee Bender (born June 28, 1969) is an American novelist and short story writer, known for her surreal stories and characters. She is a 2011 recipient of the Alex Awards.
Biography
Born to a Jewish family, Bender received her undergraduate de ...
was struggling with her first short stories when a friend gave her a copy of ''Nine Stories''; inspired, she later described Salinger's effect on writers, explaining: " feels like Salinger wrote ''The Catcher in the Rye'' in a day, and that incredible feeling of ease inspires writing. Inspires the pursuit of voice. Not his voice. My voice. Your voice." Authors such as
Stephen Chbosky
Stephen Chbosky (; born January 25, 1970) is an American screenwriter, film producer, film director, novelist, television writer, and television producer. He is best-known for writing the bestselling coming-of-age novel ''The Perks of Being a Wal ...
,
Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer (; born February 21, 1977) is an American novelist. He is known for his novels ''Everything Is Illuminated'' (2002), '' Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close'' (2005), '' Here I Am'' (2016), and for his non-fiction works ''Eatin ...
,
Carl Hiaasen
Carl Hiaasen (; born March 12, 1953) is an American journalist and novelist. He began his career as a newspaper reporter and by the late 1970s had begun writing novels in his spare time, both for adults and for young-adult readers. Two of his no ...
,
Susan Minot
Susan Minot (born December 7, 1956) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, screenwriter and painter.
Early life
Minot was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. Her father, ...
,"What Authors Influenced You?" , Authorsontheweb.com. Retrieved July 10, 2007. Both Hiaasen and Minot cite him as an influence here.
Haruki Murakami
is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been bestsellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his ...
Tom Robbins
Thomas Eugene Robbins (born July 22, 1932) is a best-selling and prolific American novelist. His most notable works are "seriocomedies" (also known as "comedy drama"), such as ''Even Cowgirls Get the Blues''. Tom Robbins has lived in La Conner, ...
,
Louis Sachar
Louis Sachar ( ; born March 20, 1954) is an American young-adult mystery-comedy author. He is best known for the ''Wayside School'' series and the novel ''Holes''.
''Holes'' won the 1998 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature
,
Joel Stein
Joel Stein (born July 23, 1971) is an American journalist who wrote for the ''Los Angeles Times''. He wrote a column and occasional articles for ''Time'' for 19 years until 2017.
Early life
Stein grew up in Edison, New Jersey, the son of a sale ...
,
Leonardo Padura
Leonardo de la Caridad Padura Fuentes (born October 10, 1955) is a Cuban novelist and journalist. , he is one of Cuba's best-known writers internationally. In his native Spanish, as well as in English and some other languages, he is often refe ...
, and
John Green
John Michael Green (born August 24, 1977) is an American author, YouTube Content creation, content creator, podcaster, and philanthropist. His books have more than 50 million copies in print worldwide, including ''The Fault in Our Stars'' ( ...
have cited Salinger as an influence. Musician
Tomas Kalnoky
Tomas Kalnoky (born December 24, 1980) is a Czechoslovakia-born United States, American musician. He is the lead singer/guitarist and songwriter of the bands Streetlight Manifesto and Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution, and goes by the pseudonym ...
of
Streetlight Manifesto
Streetlight Manifesto is an American ska punk band from New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States, formed in 2002. They released their first album, ''Everything Goes Numb'', which was distributed by Victory Records, on August 26, 2003. The band he ...
also cites Salinger as an influence, referencing him and Holden Caulfield in the song " Here's to Life". Biographer Paul Alexander called Salinger "the
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses, she was known for her melancholic, somber persona, her film portrayals of tragedy, ...
of literature".
In the mid-1960s, Salinger was drawn to
Sufi mysticism
Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...
through the writer and thinker
Idries Shah
Idries Shah (; hi, इदरीस शाह, ps, ادريس شاه, ur, ; 16 June 1924 – 23 November 1996), also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el- Hashimi (Arabic: سيد إدريس هاشمي) and by the pen name Arko ...
's seminal work ''
The Sufis
''The Sufis'' is one of the best known books on Sufism by the writer Idries Shah. First published in 1964 with an introduction by Robert Graves, it introduced Sufi ideas to the West in a format acceptable to non-specialists at a time when the ...
'', as were others writers such as
Doris Lessing
Doris May Lessing (; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British-Zimbabwean novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remain ...
and
Geoffrey Grigson
Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson (2 March 1905 – 25 November 1985) was a British poet, writer, editor, critic, exhibition curator, anthologist and naturalist. In the 1930s he was editor of the influential magazine ''New Verse'', and went on to p ...
and the poets
Robert Graves
Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...
and
Ted Hughes
Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...
. As well as Shah, Salinger read the Taoist philosopher
Lao Tse
Laozi (), also known by numerous other names, was a semilegendary ancient Chinese Taoist philosopher. Laozi ( zh, ) is a Chinese honorific, generally translated as "the Old Master". Traditional accounts say he was born as in the state of ...
and the Hindu
Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda (; ; 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta (), was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the intro ...
who introduced the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world.
List of works
Books
* ''
The Catcher in the Rye
''The Catcher in the Rye'' is an American novel by J. D. Salinger that was partially published in serial form from 1945–46 before being novelized in 1951. Originally intended for adults, it is often read by adolescents for its themes of angst ...
Down at the Dinghy
"Down at the Dinghy" is a short story by J. D. Salinger, originally published in '' Harper's'' in April 1949, and included in the compilation, '' Nine Stories''.
Written in the summer of 1948 at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, the story marks a shift aw ...
Teddy
Teddy is an English language given name, usually a hypocorism of Edward or Theodore. It may refer to:
People Nickname
* Teddy Atlas (born 1956), boxing trainer and fight commentator
* Teddy Bourne (born 1948), British Olympic epee fencer
* Tedd ...
" (1953)
* ''
Franny and Zooey
''Franny ''and'' Zooey'' is a book by American author J. D. Salinger which comprises his short story "Franny" and novella ''Zooey'' . The two works were published together as a book in 1961, having originally appeared in ''The New Yorker'' in 19 ...
'' (1961), reworked from "Ivanoff, the Terrible" (1956)
** "Franny" (1955)
** "Zooey" (1957)
* '' Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction'' (1963)
** "Raise High the Roof-Beam, Carpenters" (1955)
** "Seymour: An Introduction" (1959)
* '' Three Early Stories'' (2014)
** "The Young Folks" (1940)
** "Go See Eddie" (1940)
** "Once a Week Won't Kill You" (1944)
The Varioni Brothers
"The Varioni Brothers" is a short story by J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger (; January 1, 1919 January 27, 2010) was an American author best known for his 1951 novel ''The Catcher in the Rye''. Salinger got his start in 1940, before serving ...
Last Day of the Last Furlough "Last Day of the Last Furlough" is a short story written by American writer J. D. Salinger in 1944 and published in the July 15th issue of '' Saturday Evening Post''.J. D. Salinger: Seventy-Eight Bananas. William Wiegand. ''Chicago Review'', Vol. 1 ...
I'm Crazy "I'm Crazy" is a short story written by J. D. Salinger for the December 22, 1945 issue of '' Collier's'' magazine. Despite the story's underlying melancholy, the magazine described it as "the heart-warming story of a kid whose only fault lay in und ...
" (1945)
* " A Boy in France" (1945, republished in ''Post Stories 1942–45'', ed. Ben Hibbs, 1946 and July/August 2010 issue of ''Saturday Evening Post'' magazine), reworked from "What Babe Saw, or Ooh-La-La!" (1944)
* "
This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise "This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise" is a short story by J. D. Salinger published in '' Esquire'' in October 1945. The story was published in the 1958 anthology ''The Armchair Esquire'', edited by Arnold Gingrich and L. Rust Hills.
The story describ ...
" (1945, republished in ''The Armchair Esquire'', ed. L. Rust Hills, 1959)
* "
Slight Rebellion off Madison
"Slight Rebellion off Madison" is a short story written by J. D. Salinger in 1941 and first published in the December 21, 1946 issue of ''The New Yorker''. It would become the basis for his famous novel ''The Catcher in the Rye'', which contains a ...
" (1946, republished in ''Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker'', ed. David Remnick, 2000)
* "
A Young Girl in 1941 with No Waist at All
"A Young Girl in 1941 with No Waist at All" is a short story by J. D. Salinger, published in '' Mademoiselle'' in May 1947. The story has not been published in any anthology. It is of literary interest today largely because the character of Ray ...
Hapworth 16, 1924 "Hapworth 16, 1924" is a short story by the American author J. D. Salinger, the last original work published in his lifetime. It appeared in the June 19, 1965, edition of ''The New Yorker'', infamously taking up almost the entire magazine. It is th ...
" (1965)
Unpublished stories
* "The Survivors" (1939)
* "The long hotel story" (1940)
* "The Fishermen" (1941)
* "Lunch for Three" (1941)
* "I Went to School with Adolf Hitler" (1941)
* "Monologue for a Watery Highball" (1941)
* "The Lovely Dead Girl at Table Six" (1941)
* " Mrs. Hincher" (1942), also known as "Paula"
* "The Kissless Life of Reilly" (1942)
* " The Last and Best of the Peter Pans" (1942)
* "Holden On the Bus" (1942)
* "Men Without Hemingway" (1942)
* "Over the Sea Let’s Go, Twentieth Century Fox" (1942)
* "The Broken Children" (1943)
* "Paris" (1943)
* "Rex Passard on the Planet Mars" (1943)
* "Bitsey" (1943)
* "What Got Into Curtis in the Woodshed" (1944)
* " The Children's Echelon" (1944), also known as "Total War Diary"
* "Boy Standing in Tennessee" (1944)
* "
The Magic Foxhole
''The Magic Foxhole'' is an unpublished short story by J. D. Salinger.
Plot
The story, told in the first-person by a narrator named Garrity, takes place days after D-Day. Garrity describes a friend of his, another soldier named Gardner, who is ...
" (1944)
* " Two Lonely Men" (1944)
* "A Young Man in a Stuffed Shirt" (1944)
* "The Daughter of the Late, Great Man" (1945)
* "
The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls "The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls" is an unpublished work by J. D. Salinger. It is about the death of Kenneth Caulfield, who later became the character Allie in ''The Catcher in the Rye''.
History
The story was initially going to appear in ''Harper' ...
" (1947)
* " Birthday Boy" (1946), also known as "The Male Goodbye"
* "The Boy in the People Shooting Hat" (1948)
* "A Summer Accident" (1949)
* "Requiem for the Phantom of the Opera" (1950)
Media portrayals and references
* In
W. P. Kinsella
William Patrick "W. P." Kinsella (May 25, 1935September 16, 2016) was a Canadian novelist and short story writer, known for his novel ''Shoeless Joe'' (1982), which was adapted into the movie ''Field of Dreams'' in 1989. His work often concern ...
's 1982 novel, '' Shoeless Joe'', the main character "kidnaps" the reclusive Salinger to take him to a baseball game. When the novel was adapted for cinema as ''
Field of Dreams
''Field of Dreams'' is a 1989 American sports fantasy drama film written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson, based on Canadian novelist W. P. Kinsella's 1982 novel '' Shoeless Joe''. The film stars Kevin Costner as a farmer who builds a ...
'', Salinger's character was replaced by the fictional Terence Mann (played by
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor. He has been described as "one of America's most distinguished and versatile" actors for his performances in film, television, and theater, and "one of the greatest actors in America ...
), amid fears that Salinger might sue.
*
Sean Connery
Sir Sean Connery (born Thomas Connery; 25 August 1930 – 31 October 2020) was a Scottish actor. He was the first actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond on film, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983. Origina ...
claimed that Salinger was the inspiration for his role as William Forrester in the 2000 film ''
Finding Forrester
''Finding Forrester'' is a 2000 American drama film written by Mike Rich and directed by Gus Van Sant. In the film, a black teenager, Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown (actor), Rob Brown), is invited to attend a prestigious private high school. By chance ...
''.
* In the 2002 film ''
The Good Girl
''The Good Girl'' is a 2002 American comedy-drama film directed by Miguel Arteta from a script by Mike White. The film stars Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal and John C. Reilly.
''The Good Girl'' premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, ...
'', the character of Holden (played by
Jake Gyllenhaal
Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal (; ; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor. Born into the Gyllenhaal family, he is the son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, and his older sister is actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He beg ...
) adopts the name because of his admiration of ''The Catcher in the Rye''.
* The anime TV series '' Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex'' heavily references J. D. Salinger works including ''Catcher in the Rye'', ''The Laughing Man'' and ''A Perfect Day for Banana Fish''.
* Salinger's name is mentioned in the title for
The Wonder Years
''The Wonder Years'' is an American coming-of-age story, coming-of-age situation comedy, comedy/Drama (film and television), drama television series created by Neal Marlens and Carol L. Black, Carol Black. It ran on American Broadcasting Company ...
song " You're Not Salinger. Get Over It."
* ''The Catcher in the Rye'' plays a major part in the ''South Park'' episode " The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs", as the boys are inspired to write their own book when they feel Salinger's book does not live up to its controversial reputation.
* In the film ''
Man at Bath
''Man at Bath'' (french: Homme au bain) is a 2010 French film by Christophe Honoré starring François Sagat and Chiara Mastroianni. The film premiered in competition at Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland in 2010 and was released i ...
'' (2010), the character Dustin Segura-Suarez holds ''Franny and Zooey'' in his hands while taking a bath.
* '' Salinger'' is a 2013 documentary film that tells the story of Salinger's life through interviews with friends, historians, and journalists.
* In the book and TV show ''
You
In Modern English, ''you'' is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers.
History
''You'' comes from the Proto- ...
'' by Caroline Kepnes, one of the characters, Peach, is named as being a relative of Salinger.
* Salinger is portrayed by
Chris Cooper
Christopher Walton Cooper (born July 9, 1951) is an American actor. He has appeared in several major Hollywood films, including '' American Beauty'' (1999), ''October Sky'' (1999), '' The Bourne Identity'' (2002), '' Seabiscuit'' (2003), '' Ca ...
in
James Steven Sadwith
James Steven Sadwith (born October 20, 1952) is an American producer, screenwriter, and Emmy Award-winning film director. He is best known for directing the television movie '' In Broad Daylight'' (1991), the miniseries ''Sinatra
Francis ...
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin (born March 26, 1934) is an American actor, director and screenwriter known for his performances on stage and screen. Throughout his career spanning over six decades, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award ...
) in several 2015–2016 episodes of ''
BoJack Horseman
''BoJack Horseman'' is an American adult animation, adult animated Black comedy, black Comedy drama, comedy-drama streaming television series created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg. It stars the voices of Will Arnett, Amy Sedaris, Alison Brie, Paul F ...
'' (season 2 episodes 6, 7, 8, 10 and season 3 episode 1), where he is said to have faked his own death to escape public attention and ironically pursue a career in television production. He quotes numerous lines from his works, bemoaning how ''
The Catcher in the Rye
''The Catcher in the Rye'' is an American novel by J. D. Salinger that was partially published in serial form from 1945–46 before being novelized in 1951. Originally intended for adults, it is often read by adolescents for its themes of angst ...
'' has become his only recognizable work. In humorous contrast to his real-life beliefs, this rendition of Salinger loves Hollywoo and ends up managing a
game show
A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or Let's Play, demonstrative and are typically directed b ...
, which he aptly names ''Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things? Let's Find Out''.
* Salinger was portrayed by
Nicholas Hoult
Nicholas Caradoc Hoult (born 7 December 1989) is an English actor. His List of roles and awards of Nicholas Hoult, body of work includes supporting work in big-budget mainstream productions and starring roles in Independent film, independent p ...
in the 2017 film ''
Rebel in the Rye
''Rebel in the Rye'' is a 2017 American biographical drama film directed and written by Danny Strong. It is based on the book ''J. D. Salinger: A Life'' by Kenneth Slawenski, about the life of writer J. D. Salinger during and after World War II. T ...
''.
* ''
My Salinger Year
''My Salinger Year'' (also known as ''My New York Year'') is a 2020 drama film written and directed by Philippe Falardeau, based upon the memoir of the same name by Joanna Rakoff. It stars Margaret Qualley, Sigourney Weaver, Douglas Booth, Seá ...
'' is a film directed by Philippe Falardeau released in 2021, based on the 2014 memoir by
Joanna Rakoff
Joanna Rakoff (born May 8, 1972) is an American novelist and memoirist.
Early life
Rakoff was born in Nyack, New York in 1972.The Reclusive Writer Inspired a Generation ''Baltimore Sun'', January 29, 2010
nbsp;– ''Daily Telegraph'' obituary
Obituary: JD Salinger BBC News, January 28, 2010
World Socialist Web Site. February 2, 2010.
Implied meanings in J. D. Salinger stories and reverting
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
Life magazine
''Life'' was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, ''Life'' was a wide-ranging weekly general-interest ma ...
Esquire
Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title.
In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentlema ...