Rubbing out the last “Fuck You” in the world…

J.D. Salinger died today. He was for the kids that didn’t fit in and became popular in spite of all that, paving this path for the likes of Stephen Chbosky, Wes Anderson, and many others, even decades later.

To say our lives won’t change significantly (although we’ll act like they did) is an understatement; the last new thing published by him was in 1965. He may have wrote:

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.

which, coincidentally, is my standard for that private special feeling of intense intimacy that comes with good writing. However much he dreamed of that closeness between writer and reader, he put as much stock and distance into his privacy as any successful author ever could. He pulled his author photo, he denied any and all press inquires, he took privacy cases to the Supreme Court and won, he shut down all biographies, documentaries, and would build a fence around his house. His own daughter would try to sell him out with a private tell-all and he cut her out.

But he still wrote - but only for himself. There’s rumored to be scads of unpublished work (novels and short stories) and only time will tell if we get to read any of it.

Having sat by and watched many great minds slip away into the ether: Thompson (05), Vonnegut (07), Mailer (07), or DF Wallace (08), I’m always struck by the unexpected loss (HST and DFW suicides) or power of old age that can take away the ability to call up the man responsible for waves of cultural and personal influence to see what he’s thinking about current events or to even anticipate their next great work. But rather than mourn, such passings give us reminders and that push to read or re-read what made them so memorable and important. To share their knowledge and stories - to keep them still alive and a part of the discussion.

That’s why we still have Salinger’s books, his New Yorker stories, and Uncollected Writings - to back up and reinforce these feelings and celebrate his work.

If we can introduce one new reader of Salinger today for reasons other than a HS english syllabus, then something good has come out of this attention. An appreciation of Jerome David Salinger, 1919-2010.