The Life of J.D. Salinger

Jerome David Salinger lived solemnly at his New Hampshire home for over 50 years after the publishing of his most popular novel, Catcher in the Rye. Never embracing his fame as an author, he remained a reclusive writer until the day he died, January 27, 2010 of natural causes. Now, without so much as an interview since the 1980s, rumors circulate of unpublished literature stock piled by the anti-celebrity in his secretive home, and about the late life of which so little is known.

Salinger was born on New Years Day of 1919 to father Sol Salinger and his mother, Marie Jillich. His mother eventually changed her name to Miriam in order to pass as Jewish for her husband. He spent his childhood uneventfully in Manhattan with his one sister, Doris. As a young adult, Salinger dropped out of New York University in 1936 in order to move to Vienna, Austria for a job opportunity. Because of the turmoil brought on by the Nazi regime, Salinger left Austria a month before the German occupation of Austria in 1938.

It wasn't until 1940 that Salinger published his first story at the age of 21. The short story was titled "The Young Folks" and appeared in the magazine Story. Perhaps inspired by this success, Salinger began submitting stories to The New Yorker in 1941 and faced several story rejections before his short story "Slight Rebellion of Madison" was accepted. It was in this story that the character of Holden Caulfield was first seen and the basis of Catcher in the Rye originated. Unfortunately, The New Yorker revoked this story's acceptance after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor allegedly because of the desolate tone.

Salinger's writing was placed on hold while he was drafted and fought in World War Two. As any other soldier of the time, Salinger saw atrocities of war first hand and morbidly disclosed to his daughter later in life that "You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live." His scarring experiences would later influence several stories, including a short story told by a traumatized soldier titled "For Esmé; with Love and Squalor." While in Germany, Salinger met his first wife, Sylvia Welter. The marriage was short lived and fell apart when the two returned to the United States in 1946.

After the war, Salinger continued to submit short stories to magazines with some success. Regardless, from 1944 to 1946 The New Yorker rejected every one of his submissions. His luck would change in 1948 when The New Yorker accepted his short story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," the first short story in what would become a series of stories about the Glasses family.

In an attempt to attain financial security, Salinger wished to sell filming rights for some of his literary works. Only one film was made, an adaptation of "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut," and it was disgraced by critics. Because of the failure of this film and the misrepresentation of his work, Salinger never gave permission for his works to be made into films again.

Of all of his works, Cather in the Rye was by far the most successful. This infamous novel was published in 1951 and met with praise and criticism mixed in a whirlwind of media that seems to never have lost interest in the novel. Some critics were baffled by the novel, claiming it was too brilliant to be a first novel. Others, however, called it profane and pervasive. Regardless, Catcher in the Rye became a cultural phenomena for any teenager who ever felt disregarded and out of place.

As time progressed, more and more controversy began to surround the novel and Salinger became more and more disassociated with the society around him. The novel was banned in many schools and even several countries because of the subject matter. Teachers lost their jobs for assigning the novel and parents protested libraries carrying the book. In spite of all the antagonism against the novel, you would find it on the bookshelves of over 65 million people since its publication.

In 1955, Salinger married his second wife, Claire Douglas with whom he had two children- Margaret and Matthew. The birth of their first child Margaret put strain on the marriage, as Claire felt Salinger was more devoted to his child than her. Her stress peaked in 1957 when she made plans to murder her 13 month old daughter and commit suicide. In actuality, she did not go through with the plan and instead ran away with her daughter. Salinger eventually convinced her to come back, but the two would later divorce in 1967.

Salinger's last publications,Franny and Zooey in 1961 and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction in 1963, both contained two short novellas about the Glasses. Salinger officially ended his publishing career in 1965 with "Hapworth 16, 1924," a short story that encompassed nearly an entire issue of The New Yorker, the magazine that ironically rejected him the most throughout his career.

In 1972, Salinger began dating the 18 year old Joyce Maynard after exchanging over twenty five letters. Their relationship did not last, and the two separated, according to Salinger, because Maynard wanted children. Maynard tells a different story in the memoir she would write later in life, claiming Salinger ended their relationship abruptly and frequently courted younger girls through letters. Maynard would sell the letters from Salinger later on in her life out of financial desperation. The letters were purchased for over $150,000, and the purchaser returned the letters to Salinger.

While little is known of Salinger's late private life, his public image was plagued with legal conflicts. Never accepting his fame, Salinger was furious when author Ian Hamilton attempted to publish a book about his life containing private letters in 1986. Salinger sued to halt the publication because of his rights to the letters. He lost the case, on the agreement that Hamilton would paraphrase the letters in the book. Ironically, Salinger ended up revealing even more of his life by suing because of the public court transcripts that discussed excerpts from the letters and details of his private life.

In his own words, Salinger said "An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.” This message of independence and rebellion that characterized his work, and influenced not only writers to come after him, but authors of his own time. John Updike described Salinger's influence by saying this:
"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. Reading [Salinger] stick[s] in my mind as really having moved me a step up, as it were, toward knowing how to handle my own material."
Stephen Chbosky frequently cites Salinger as an inspiration for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a novel some consider to be the "modern" Catcher in the Rye.

For a man who shaped modern literature so profoundly, I feel there is no more appropriate way to conclude a biography of his life than with his most beautiful words on the gift that literature is:
"Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them, if you want to. Just as some day if you have something to offer someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history- It's poetry.”