Jerome David Salinger grew up in New York City, the son of a Jewish father and a Scotch-Irish mother; his father sold cheese and smoked meats. It is said that the Marx Brothers used to drop by the Salinger apartment. At 17, Jerome David decided to become a writer. He attended private schools, never graduated from college, and served in the Army in World War II, an experience he wrote about, obliquely, in several short stories, most notably "For Esmé, With Love and Squalor". He began writing ser more...
Jerome David Salinger grew up in New York City, the son of a Jewish father and a Scotch-Irish mother; his father sold cheese and smoked meats. It is said that the Marx Brothers used to drop by the Salinger apartment. At 17, Jerome David decided to become a writer. He attended private schools, never graduated from college, and served in the Army in World War II, an experience he wrote about, obliquely, in several short stories, most notably "For Esmé, With Love and Squalor". He began writing seriously during the war, but most of his early work was so mediocre he tried to keep it from being reprinted; out of dozens, he chose only nine stories for his first collection. Around 1948, however, Salinger began publishing in "The New Yorker", and his fiction improved dramatically, becoming the classic explorations of youth vs. hypocrisy ("phoniness") for which he became celebrated. Salinger has been married and divorced twice; his devotion to Zen Buddhism is evident in his later fiction. In 1952, he moved from New York to Cornish, New Hampshire, where he continues to live as a recluse on 99 acres at the top of a hill, with a view of five states. He has published nothing since 1965, though he apparently continues to write. Salinger has been called the most widely read and least prolific author in history; his reputation rests on one novel, two novellas, and a handful of short stories.less...
Salinger's gems come in the form of dialogue between children and adults, and the contrast between shell-shocked veterans (and otherwise damaged adults) and innocent children. A charming example of this, possibly the best story in the book, is "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," which records the familiar Seymour Glass' last conversation of his life with a small girl at a resort beach. While coming across as eccentric, the encounter doesn't strike me as creepy, and is as absurd as all of Salinger's short stories. "Just Before the War with the Eskimos" has a Zooey-Glass-in-the-bathtub sort of conversation with an almost innocent dupe, and the celebrated "For Esme With Love and Squalor" plays on the same themes.
Salinger's gems come in the form of dialogue between children and adults, and the contrast between shell-shocked veterans (and otherwise damaged adults) and innocent children. A charming example of this, possibly the best story in the book, is "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," which records the familiar Seymour Glass' last conversation of his life with a small girl at a resort beach. While coming across as eccentric, the encounter doesn't strike me as creepy, and is as absurd as all of Salinger's short stories. "Just Before the War with the Eskimos" has a Zooey-Glass-in-the-bathtub sort of conversation with an almost innocent dupe, and the celebrated "For Esme With Love and Squalor" plays on the same themes.