J. D. Salinger Summary

Best known for his controversial novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951), J. D. Salinger (born 1919) is recognized by critics and readers alike as one of the most popular and influential authors of Ameri... Read more

J. D. Salinger was born on January 1, 1919, the second child and only son of a Jewish father, a prosperous importer of hams and cheeses and a Scotch-Irish mother. Very little is known about Salinger. ... Read more

A few writers are so enveloped in their reputations that their work is virtually impossible to read without being distracted by their fame and their relation to the public. No one else has ever been k... Read more

In the following essay, Bidney examines the role of epiphanies in Salinger's short fiction. Strangely, no attempt has yet been made to find a pattern that can unite the epiphanies of charact... Read more

Critical Essay by Joan Didion Among the reasonably literate young and young in heart, [J. D. Salinger] is surely the most read and reread writer in America today, exerting a power over his readers wh... Read more

Critical Essay by John Updike Salinger's conviction that our inner lives greatly matter peculiarly qualifies him to sing of an America where, for most of us, there seems little to do but to fe... Read more

Critical Essay by Paul Levine No writer of recent years has captured the New Yorker market of Connecticut emigres the way J. D. Salinger has. From the defiant Holden Caulfield to the stoic Mrs. Glass... Read more

Critical Essay by Arthur Mizener The essential reality for [Salinger] subsists in personal relations, when people, however agonizingly, love one another. "I say," remarks Buddy Glass as... Read more

Critical Essay by John Hermann Salinger's story, "For Esmé—with Love and Squalor," has been anthologized, selected as his best story, and in general accorded the hi... Read more