Chatterbox: Down to Earth

J.D. Salinger

As some of you may know, the renowned author J.D. Salinger, who wrote The Catcher in the Rye and short stories for the New Yorker magazine, passed away on January 27, 2010 at the age of 91.  I read his obituary in the newspaper and was amazed at how isolated he was.  After publishing a bit, he retreated to an estate in New Hampshire and wrote for himself.  He did not want his personal information out there and even took his picture off the back cover of his books. Many of his books are based on himself and his life.  He was a soldier in World War II and even fought on D-Day.  He, like the main character in The Catcher in the Rye, was a prep school dropout and grew up in New York City.  He married three times and his children led dull lives and rarely left their home.  His daughter wrote a book about her isolated childhood. So, he led a pretty secluded life, but wrote an American classic.

I was telling my friend that J.D. Salinger had died yesterday and she told me that her mom had told her that.  When her mom had told my friend about his death, she had asked her if she knew what he had written.  She didn't.  Her mom replied that he had written The Catcher in the Rye.  She immediately said, "Oh!  That's my favorite book!"

Her mom was aghast and responded, "You weren't supposed to read that until high school!!"

It was too late.  My friend already owned and loved the book.  

So you see, it's not really a young person's book.  But about a week ago, I was in the library and saw it just sitting there in the Recent Returns section.  I thought about my friend and how really liked it.  So I checked it out.  It's a good book, once you get past all the language and the casual style of writing.  It's pretty deep and actually quite amazing.

Just letting you out there know of the death of an author.  This can become a forum for books written my J.D. Salinger or just an announcement with no posts.

~Leaf☮♪❊