This week J.D. Salinger, the author of
The Catcher in the Rye passed away at 91 years old. Many of us read the book in high school. It’s been so long since I read it, but it is a book I have always appreciated. If published today, it would not be controversial, but at the time it was published in 1951 – it was praised by some and banned by others.
With Salinger’s passing, many are asking what about the lifetime of work he created after
The Catcher in the Rye? Was the author of keeping a vault of finished, unpublished manuscripts in a safe in his house in New Hampshire? It depends who you ask. Stories about Salinger’s work have been around for a long time. In 1999, a neighbor said the author had told him years earlier that he had written at least 15 unpublished books kept locked in a safe at his home.
If he does have unpublished books in his home, there’s a good chance we’ll never see them.
Salinger, who was rarely seen or interviewed, told the New York Times in 1974 that “There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure."
I have to say, I find that really wonderful. There’s so much self-promotional and obsession with making money, it’s refreshing to think that someone who was such a cherished writer, kept on writing – not for the sake of publishing his work, but just because he loved it. I think we ought to honor that.
