J.D. Salinger died today at 91. Every obituary is sure to mention 2 things: He wrote Catcher in the Rye, and he was a recluse.
J.D. Salinger circa 1950 -- when he wrote "Catcher in the Rye" in Westport.
Once upon a time, though, he was less secretive about his life. On the jacket of Franny and Zooey, published in 1961, he said: “My wife has asked me to add … in a single explosion of candor, that I live in Westport with my dog.” (It was a rental house; the Schnauzer’s name was Benny.)
Some folks thought that was a feint, though. Contemporary sources complained that at that point, he hadn’t lived in Westport in years.
And a 1999 Travel + Leisure story said:
In 1953, two years after The Catcher in the Rye was published … Salinger, like Holden (Caulfield), wanted to move to the country, from Westport, Connecticut. He began looking around New England for property, and found a 90-acre tract of land high on a hill not in Vermont, but across the Connecticut River in New Hampshire.
A timeline on eNotes.com — hey, how else can you understand some of his references and allusions? — puts him here in 1949. That’s around the time he was writing such classics as “The Laughing Man” and “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.”
Nine Stories — which, though nobody asked, I like a lot more than Catcher — teems with references to Westport and Fairfield County. (Just check out “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut.”) It’s a wonder anyone moved here after Salinger got through describing some of what went on in those days.
Come to think of it, he didn’t stick around much after that either.