CATCHER ON THE SLY
Where is J.D. Salinger? How has he spent the last 40-odd years since his last real publication?
Born on New Year's Day in 1919, Jerome David Salinger was the son of Sol Salinger, a Jewish deli importer, and Miriam Jillich, a Scottish/Irish Catholic mother. Both sets of grandparents had balked at the union of his parents. As such, the young Salinger's life was conceived in conflict, which he carried with him as he matured.
His father shunned the boy, whom he called "Sonny." In his rebellion, Salinger became a vegetarian and even skipped his father's funeral. He was expelled from private school and was shipped off to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania. (His experiences there later served as fodder for his creation of Pencey Prep in CATCHER IN THE RYE, which appeared in 1951.)
Salinger grew up in Manhattan and studied at New York University, Ursinus College, and Columbia University.
During World War II, Salinger was drafted and served with the US Army Signal and Counter-Intelligence Corps. He fought in the battle of Normandy in 1944.
In 1945, he married his first wife, Sylvia, a French doctor. The marriage lasted just two years.
Early in his writing career, he published several short stories in THE NEW YORKER. His best-known stories include "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" (1948). In all, Salinger published 35 short stories for THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, STORY, COLLIERS, COSMOPOLITAN, ESQUIRE, THE NEW YORKER and other periodicals. His last story appeared in 1965.
No one-hit wonder, Salinger's most famous work by far has been CATCHER IN THE RYE, which took him ten years to write. This perennially popular novel explores the experiences of a sarcastic, sardonic, isolated and angst-ridden high schooler. The rebellious protagonist, Holden Caulfield, has been celebrated as an emblem of young adulthood in that era. Holden's favorite word, "phony," became an anti-authoritarian watchword for the 1950s and 1960s.
The Book-of-the-Month Club named CATCHER as a primary pick for 1951, and the title immediately became a bestseller. Even so, Salinger refused to allow the publisher to include a photograph of him on the book's cover.
In 1955, Salinger married Claire Douglas. The couple divorced 12 years later, after producing a son and a daughter. After the demise of his second marriage, the dejected Salinger pursued Zen Buddhism. Perhaps the solitude of meditation appealed to him. More recently, he apparently also has dabbled in Scientology.
His son, Matt Salinger, grew up to become an actor, starring in REVENGE OF THE NERDS and TV's PICKET FENCES.
The ultra-private author took a third wife, Colleen O'Neil in the late 1980s. His extracurricular life was marked by mistresses, such as Oona O'Neill (who later married silent movie star Charlie Chaplin) and Joyce Maynard.
CATCHER remains Salinger's longest-lasting legacy. Some 250,000 copies are still sold each year. The enduring novel seems to appeal particularly to the disenfranchised among us. On December 8, 1980, when John David Chapman shot ex-Beatle John Lennon, he apparently sat nearby and read the book until the authorities arrived to arrest him.
Salinger's other books included NINE STORIES (1953), FRANNY AND ZOOEY (1961), and RAISE HIGH THE ROOF BEAM, CARPENTERS (1963) and SEYMOUR: AN INTRODUCTION (1963).
Shying from publicity, Salinger relocated from New York City to rural New Hampshire in 1953. He has remained out of the spotlight throughout his life, existing as a recluse. In 1992, when his Cornish, New Hampshire, home caught fire, the author escaped secretly before pursuing reporters could interview him.
Still alive in the 21st Century, Salinger pursues writing, but not publication.
His own daughter, Margaret Salinger, published an unauthorized biography of her father in 2000. DREAM CATCHER: A MEMOIR fascinated Salinger fans with astonishing details of life with the secret scribe.
SOURCES:
http://www.answers.com/topic/j-d-salinger
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/salinger.htm
http://www.levity.com/corduroy/salinger.htm
http://www.nndb.com/people/743/000022677/
http://members.tripod.com/~JeanneAnn/salinger.html
http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/authors/about_j_salinger.html
