Who is J. D. Salinger & Why Was He A Recluse?

When J. D. Salinger died on January 27, 2010, Stephen King said in Entertainment Weekly, "Salinger was the last of the great post-WWII American writers, and in Holden Caulfield - maybe the greatest American-boy narrator since Huck Finn - he created an authentic Voice of the Age: funny, anxious, at odds with himself, and badly lost."

So, the question I have is, how could a writer of fiction know so much about American psyches if he hid himself away from Americans?

I suspect Salinger would have become a household name if he had flooded the market with mediocre novels the way some writers do today. But, he was highly circumspect and in fact generated a reputation for loathing public attention. Emily Dickinson was also reclusive in her latter stages of life. Much like Salinger, the more precision found in her writing, the less public contact.

Here's a quote from Salinger himself who died at age 91: "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." I can understand feelings such as these. Can you? Maybe it just means they understood themselves enough to know that fame was not their cup of tea.

The combination of exquisite writing and the theme of a truant teenager in "Catcher" made it a popular classic in high school American English Literature studies.

"With its cynical, slangy vernacular voice (Holden's two favorite expressions are "phony" and "g...d..")," said McGrath in the Times. "its sympathetic understanding of adolescence and its fierce if alienated sense of morality and distrust of the adult world, the novel struck a nerve in cold war America and quickly attained cult status, especially among the young."

I hope his friends and loved ones discover unpublished literary masterpieces under Salinger's bed or, better yet, waiting in an envelope. You know, ready to mail but that he never got around to those pesky postage stamps. That way, we would know that he wanted the world to discover ever more of his mastery of language.

The Catcher in the Rye is available here >>