JD Salinger was a pervert. Or at least that is what my great grandfather said. Or that is what someone said that my great grandfather said about JD Salinger. A young woman at my first job when I was fifteen told me that Catcher in the Rye was her favorite book. Years later when I read it it reminded me of the new and exciting life that could be found in America by a hip adolescent going up against the conformist culture of the squares.
Norman Mailer talked about JD Salinger in his collection of writings, Advertisements for Myself (1959). This was the piece that Norman did where he criticized the writing of his contemporaries, something apparently not yet done until he did it. Mailer talked of his major contemporaries spurring me to read James Jones From Here to Eternity (1951) and buy a couple John Updike short story books then added authors like Jack Kerouac, William S Burroughs and JD Salinger as a kind of second string. JD Salinger had his one big hit Catcher in the Rye and the rest of his works are seminal.
Catcher in the Rye (1951) is this kid wandering around New York City and it reads like a teenage version of Home Alone. The boy is just trying to get his kicks and runs into various roadblocks of authority along the way. This novel is more pop conscientious than his other writings. Franny and Zooey (1961) is about a girl not wanting to go to college and her more sensible brother having a conversation with her to convince her to go to college. Nine stories (1953) revolves around a family of child star intellectual prodigies growing up. Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters and Seymour: an Introduction (1963) is more hot takes on random essential knowledge enabling one to apply thought to the modern world.
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