Only Salinger's last few published stories were notable for their controversial, antinarrative structures; the novel and other stories are exemplary of the brisk, ironic
"New Yorker style," used by other writers such as John O'Hara and John Cheever; but all Salinger's work is remarkable for his command of the brisk, nervous, defensive speech of young, upper-middle-class Manhattanites. His work is a unique phenomenon, important as the voice of a "silent generation" in revolt against a "phony world" and in search of mystical escapes from a deteriorating society rather than "causes" promising political revolution or reform.
Salinger was born and grew up in the fashionable apartment district of Manhattan, the son of a prosperous Jewish importer and his Scotch- Irish wife. In one of the few interviews he has granted, he said that his own childhood was much like that of the boy Holden Caulfield in his novel The Catcher in the Rye, though Salinger had only one sister. Like Holden, he was restless in fashionable prep schools, and he was finally sent to Valley Forge Military Academy, a model for Pencey Prep in his novel. Here and at nearby Ursinus College, which he attended briefly, he worked for literary magazines and wrote movie reviews.
This is a free page. This page contains 195 words. This
biography contains 6,297 words (approx. 21 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our J. D. Salinger Access Pass.
