One of the most popular and enigmatic figures in American literary history, J.D. (Jerome David) Salinger (1919-2010) is famous primarily for two things: first, for his landmark semi-autobiographical first novel, The Catcher in the Rye (1951), a seminal and influential depiction of adolescent alienation, angst, and loss of innocence manifested by its protagonist, Holden Caulfield; and, second, for his reclusive life, which has entered the realm of urban American legend.
He never published another full-length novel after Catcher, although he did have some modest success with several short stories and novellas, including the well-known Franny and Zooey (1961).
In the outstanding March 11, 1981 correspondence pictured with this column (the three pages have been cropped for space considerations), Salinger waxes astrological to his friend Mary Janet Eagleson. Noting that “my confidence in my own astrological plottings isn’t exactly boundless,” he nonetheless records his birthdate as “9 AM, Jan. 1, 1919” and proceeds to list “moon in Capricorn, ascend Aquarius. . . ” etc. But it is his more personal, intimate reflections that are most interesting – particularly his direct references to his iconic Catcher protagonist.
For example, he suggests that the author and his fictional character are actually one and the same: “You asked if Tim has any visible [astrological] connection with old Holden Caulfield – or me, for that matter . . .” Another illuminating passage near the end addresses Salinger’s core philosophical beliefs as well as the quotidian details of his life: “my religio-philosophical home, if I have any, is really not anywhere very near Astrology . . .” The notoriously reclusive author concludes with an interesting insight into his private life: “I go on doing what I do, writing fiction, having fun, moping, sitting among the stale Newsweeks at Midas mufflers, etc., and that’s mostly fine with me . . . ”
Salinger was raised as an Orthodox Jew, and his later turmoil regarding his Jewish identity is the key to understanding his life and work. His paternal grandfather, Simon Salinger, had emigrated in 1881 to the United States where he served as the rabbi of the Adath Jeshurun congregation in Louisville, Kentucky to help finance his medical degree, and he became a pioneer of Conservative Judaism. (Simon was the inspiration for Holden Caulfield’s grandfather in Catcher, the loveable man who embarrassed Holden by reading street signs aloud while riding the bus).
Jerome’s father, Solomon Salinger, was a successful businessman who made his fortune as head of the New York division of J.S. Hoffman & Company, an importer of European cheeses and, ironically, hams. Jerome’s aunt, Birdie Goldberg, was an ardent Zionist who was among the early founders of Hadassah. (As Holden observes: “My aunt’s pretty charitable.”)
However, notwithstanding this extensive Jewish family history, it was only after his bar mitzvah that Jerome learned an astonishing secret: his mother, née Marie Jillich, was an Irish-Catholic who had changed her name to Miriam and passed herself off as Jewish after she married Sol. It is intriguing to note that in Catcher, Holden, Salinger’s alter-ego, mentions that “my parents are different religions” and, in a fascinating inversion, he says “As a matter of fact, my father was Catholic once. He quit, though, when he married my mother.”
In any case, it is not difficult to imagine the impact that such a discovery could have had on the 13-year-old Jerome who, like all teenagers, was coming to terms with basic questions involving personal identity and his place in the world. This may well be the genesis of Holden’s display of contempt for adult “phonies,” a central theme throughout The Catcher in the Rye, and the basis of Jerome’s utter contempt for his father, with whom he maintained a cold and distant relationship. In fact, his estrangement from, and antipathy to, Sol Salinger, was such that he refused to attend his father’s funeral.
