J.D. Salinger (January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010)

--by Hanje Richards

How does an author who wrote (arguably) his best work two years before I was born, and who never had anything published after I was in 3rd grade, still keep me fascinated, interested, and saddened by his death last week at age 91?

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Yes, his reclusiveness and his absence of published work after the mid '60s were intriguing. His relationships and marriages were interesting. How he lived was cause for great speculation, but I don’t think that any of that would have occurred, had he not been an amazing writer to begin with.

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He has been credited with creating the "Young Adult" genre, and there are certainly plenty of us who read Catcher in the Rye and believed Holden Caulfield was a spokesman for our generation (and that went on literally for generations!)

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The Copper Queen Library's collections contain his three best-known works:

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Catcher in the Rye - Published in 1951, this influential and widely acclaimed story details the two days in the life of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield after he has been expelled from prep school. Confused and disillusioned, he searches for truth and rails against the "phoniness" of the adult world. He ends up exhausted and emotionally ill, in a psychiatrist's office. After he recovers from his breakdown, Holden relates his experiences to the reader.

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Franny and Zooey - This volume contains two interrelated stories published in book form in 1961. The stories, originally published in The New Yorker magazine, concern Franny and Zooey Glass, two members of the family that was the subject of most of Salinger's short fiction. In the first story, Franny is an intellectually precocious late adolescent who tries to attain spiritual purification by obsessively reiterating the "Jesus prayer" as an antidote to the perceived superficiality and corruptness of life. She subsequently suffers a nervous breakdown.

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In the second story, her next older brother, Zooey, attempts to heal Franny by pointing out that her constant repetition of the "Jesus prayer" is as self-involved and egotistical as the egotism against which she rails.

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Nine Stories - In the J.D. Salinger benchmark "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," Seymour Glass floats his beachmate Sybil on a raft and tells her about these creatures' tragic flaw: though they seem normal, if one swims into a hole filled with bananas, it will overeat until it's too fat to escape. Meanwhile, Seymour's wife, Muriel, is back at their Florida hotel, assuring her mother not to worry -- Seymour hasn't lost control. Mention of a book he sent her from Germany and several references to his psychiatrist lead the reader to believe that World War II has undone him.

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The war hangs over these wry stories of loss and occasionally unsuppressed rage. Salinger's children are fragile, odd, hypersmart, whereas his grownups seem beaten down by circumstances -- some neurasthenic, others deeply unsympathetic.

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There has doubtless been far more written about this reclusive author than he ever had published. The Copper Queen Library owns some biographies and memoirs that tell us about parts of his intriguing life.

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These can be found in the library's "Biography" section:

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At Home In The World: A Memoir (Joyce Maynard) - In the spring of 1972, Joyce Maynard, a freshman at Yale, published a cover story in The New York Times Magazine about life in the sixties. Among the many letters of praise, offers for writing assignments, and requests for interviews was a one-page letter from the famously reclusive author J.D. Salinger.

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A crucial turning point in Joyce Maynard's life occurred when her own daughter turned eighteen -- the age Maynard was when Salinger first approached her. Breaking a twenty-five year silence, Joyce Maynard addresses her relationship with Salinger for the first time, as well as the complicated, troubled and yet creative nature of her youth and family. She vividly describes the details of the times and her life with the finesse of a natural storyteller.

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Dream Catcher: A Memoir (Margaret Ann Salinger) - In her much-anticipated memoir, Margaret A. Salinger writes about life with her famously reclusive father, offering a rare look into the man and the myth, what it is like to be his daughter, and the effect of such a charismatic figure on the girls and women closest to him.

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With generosity and insight, Ms. Salinger has written a book that is eloquent, spellbinding, and wise, yet which at the same time retains the intimacy of a novel. Her story chronicles an almost cult-like environment of extreme isolation and early neglect interwoven with times of laughter, joy, and dazzling beauty.

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Ms. Salinger compassionately explores the complex dynamics of family relationships. Her story is one that seeks to come to terms with the dark parts of her life that, quite literally, nearly killed her, and to pass on a life-affirming heritage to her own child.

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The story of being a Salinger is unique; the story of being a daughter is universal. This book appeals to anyone, J.D. Salinger fan or no, who has ever had to struggle to sort out who she really is from whom her parents dreamed she might be.

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In Search of J.D. Salinger (Ian Hamilton) - When Ian Hamilton set out in 1983 to write a biography of Salinger, he knew that there would be difficulties. Just how great those difficulties would be, what implacable hostility he would meet from Salinger, and what astonishing finds he would stumble upon, he could not have guessed.

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This text is the story of that quest, a literary detective story which ended in court as Hamilton forced the writer out of his reclusive hideaway to challenge his discoveries in a bitter and protracted lawsuit in which Salinger sought to restrict the use Hamilton could make of his letters.

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If these titles, or other materials you are interested in borrowing from The Copper Queen Library are checked out, you can put them on hold and you will be notified when they are available again.

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Check it out!