J.D. Salinger = integrity

click on image to read full letter

J.D. Salinger died just over a week ago. Check out this amazing letter where he explains why he won't sell the rights to his 1951 novel The Catcher In The Rye, (which still sells 250,000 copies a year, 60 years on) about disillusioned teen Holden Caulfield.


"The weight of the book is in the narrator's voice, the non-stop peculiarities of it, his personal, extremely discriminating attitude to his reader-listener, his asides about gasoline rainbows in street puddles... he can't legitimately be separated from his own-first person technique. True, if the separation is forcibly made, there is enough material left over for something called an exciting (or maybe just interesting) evening in the theater. But I find that idea, if not odious, at least odious enough to stop me from selling the rights."

Makes me want to read the novel again. The letter is on sale for a mere $54,000 over at www.momentsintime.com

Jerome David Salinger
Jan 1, 1919 – Jan 27, 2010
R.I.P