Cary Goldstein, Richard Rhorer, and their teams for their hard work behind the scenes;
Jonathan Harr for A Civil Action and Steven Bach for Final Cut, two books that proved extremely helpful to me during this process despite having nothing whatsoever to do with J. D. Salinger;
I want to give special thanks to Bonnie Rowan for nine years of extremely challenging research work in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Missouri, and other locations where she found material that shaped this project;
Natalie Mann for her extraordinary dedication and the countless contributions she made;
at The Weinstein Company, I want to thank Harvey Weinstein, David Glasser, Jennifer Malloy, Mark Gooder, Stephen Bruno, Erik Lomis, and Dani Weinstein;
at American Masters, Susan Lacy for being the first believer in this project and Stephen Segaller for being there on the day it really counted;
Carolyn K. Reidy;
Jim and Ann Gianopulos;
David Ellison;
Jim Cameron and Jon Landau;
Michael Mann for being both friend and mentor. Since I was nine years old I have aspired to the standard that you have set. I am incredibly grateful for the lessons you have passed onto me during years of collaboration;
J.C. for support, encouragement, and laughter;
Jean, Thomas, and Ottis Winslow, Buddy Squires, Betty Eppes, Michael Clarkson, David Victor Harris, Seán Hemingway, Brian Lipson, Jeffrey Doe, Ethel Nelson, Leila Hadley Luce, Alex Kershaw, Arne Schmidt, A. E. Hotchner, Joe Lee, Lois Lee and Braden Peter Lee, Ana Castillo, Regis Kimble, Langdon F. Page, Lorne Balfe, Craig and Stephanie Fanning, Michael McDermott and the McDermott family for their counsel, contributions, and friendship;
My deepest gratitude to Kristen for encouraging me nine long years ago to take this journey, knowing full well how relentlessly I would pursue it.
David Shields for his commitment to this project, particularly in the closing months, and for steadfastly believing it would happen years before there was a publishing, film, or television deal. I also want to thank the Shields family and Natalie Shields for her creative design work behind the scenes;
Finally, I want to thank Jerome David Salinger for living such an extraordinary life and one that I devoted nearly a decade to telling honestly. As do millions of others around the world, I look forward with great anticipation to reading the work Salinger diligently produced from 1965 until his death in 2010.
DAVID SHIELDS:
I would like to thank Laurie and Natalie for keeping all my faculties intact.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
DAVID SHIELDS is the author of fifteen books, including the New York Times bestseller The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead; Reality Hunger, named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications; Black Planet, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Remote, winner of the PEN/Revson Award. His work has been translated into twenty languages.
SHANE SALERNO is the director, producer, and writer of Salinger, the acclaimed documentary film about Salinger that premiered in September 2013 from the Weinstein Company and debuts as the 200th episode of American Masters on PBS in January 2014. In addition to Salinger, Salerno has written and produced a number of successful films and TV series. He most recently co-wrote and served as an executive producer of the highly praised film Savages, directed by Oliver Stone.
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Robert Abzug, an adviser to this book, is the Audre and Bernard Rapoport Regents Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Texas, Austin, and the author of Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps and America Views the Holocaust 1933–1945.
Mike Ackerman was a neighbor of J. D. Salinger.
Tony Adams was the executive director of the Atlanta-area YMCA at which Mark David Chapman worked as a counselor in the 1970s.
Renata Adler is the author of the novels Speedboat and Pitch Dark and the memoir Gone.
Paul Alexander, an adviser to this book, is the author of biographies of J. D. Salinger, Sylvia Plath, James Dean, and Andy Warhol.
Eberhard Alsen, who undertook extensive research throughout Europe and America as a consultant to this book, is a professor of English at State University of New York, Cortland, and the author of A Reader’s Guide to J. D. Salinger and Salinger’s Glass Stories as Composite Novel.
Stephen E. Ambrose, the author of several best-selling books about World War II, died in 2002.
Benjamin Anastas is the author of the memoir Too Good to Be True and the novels An Underachiever’s Diary and The Faithful Narrative of a Pastor’s Disappearance.
Roger Angell, a longtime New Yorker staff writer and editor, has published many collections of essays on baseball, including Late Innings and Five Seasons.
Blake Bailey, the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for his biography of John Cheever, has also written biographies of the writers Richard Yates and Charles Jackson.
Carlos Baker, the author of biographies of Ernest Hemingway and Percy Bysshe Shelley, died in 1987.
Milton G. Baker founded the Valley Forge Military Academy in 1928 and was its superintendent until 1971. He died in 1976.
Hanson W. Baldwin was the longtime military affairs editor of the New York Times and wrote more than a dozen books on military and naval history and policy. He died in 1991.
Joseph Balkoski is the command historian of the Maryland National Guard and the author of several books on D-Day, including Omaha Beach.
Donald Barr taught at Columbia University and was headmaster of the Dalton School in New York City. He was literary editor of Tomorrow and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, Saturday Review, and Commonweal. He died in 2004.
James Barron has been a reporter for the New York Times for many years.
John B. Beach was a lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Division during World War II and leader of the 1st Platoon.
Jim Bellows was the editor of the New York Herald Tribune from 1961 to 1967, then became managing editor of Entertainment Tonight and executive editor of ABC News: World News Tonight. Author of The Last Editor, he died in 2009.
Edward Jackson Bennett was a newspaper publisher and editor.
A. Scott Berg is the author of biographies of Maxwell Perkins (for which he won a National Book Award), Charles Lindbergh (for which he won a Pulitzer Prize), Sam Goldwyn, and, most recently, Woodrow Wilson.
Tony Bill is the Academy Award–winning producer of The Sting, Taxi Driver, and other films.
Sven Birkerts, a literary critic and essayist, is the author of several books of literary criticism, including The Gutenberg Elegies.
H. W. Blakeley, a division commander in World War II and commander of the 4th Infantry Division from 1944 to 1946, was made a major general in 1945. He died in 1966.
Shirlie Blaney was a reporter for the Windsor High School newspaper; her interview with J. D. Salinger appeared in the Daily Eagle of Claremont, New Hampshire, in 1953.
Eleanor Blau covered arts, culture, and film for the New York Times for many years.
Joseph L. Blotner is the coauthor of The Fiction of J. D. Salinger.
Ashley Blum recently graduated from Dartmouth College.
Louise Bogan was a poet and, for many years, an editor and poetry critic at the New Yorker; she received several submissions of poems from J. D. Salinger during World War II. Bogan died in 1970.
Susan J. Boutwell was a re
porter for the West Lebanon, New Hampshire, Valley News; she is now senior public affairs officer for strategic communication at Dartmouth College.
Robert Boynton, director of New York University’s literary reportage concentration, is the author of The New Journalism.
Thomas F. Brady was a journalist.
Stephen Braun who won a Pulitzer Prize as a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, is now a reporter and editor for Associated Press.
Richard Brooks writes for the Guardian.
Andreas Brown was the owner of the Gotham Book Mart.
Himan Brown was a radio and television producer who created CBS Radio Mystery Theater. He rented to Salinger the Westport, Connecticut, house in which The Catcher in the Rye was written. Brown died in 2010.
Frank P. Burk commanded the Infantry from Utah Beach to the end of World War II. He died in 1978.
Nash K. Burger was on the editorial staff of the New York Times Book Review for thirty years and wrote The Road to West 43rd Street. He died in 1996.
Whit Burnett, who taught J. D. Salinger in a Columbia University Extension Division short-story writing course, cofounded Story magazine in 1931 and coedited the magazine until its demise in 1967 (the magazine was later resurrected). He died in 1973.
Robert Callagy was an attorney with and chairman of the New York law firm Satterlee, Stephens, Burke & Burke. He served as lead counsel on several landmark First Amendment and copyright law cases, including Ian Hamilton’s defense against a J. D. Salinger lawsuit. He died in 2006.
Glenn Gordon Caron was the creator of the television shows Moonlighting and Medium; he has worked as a producer and director of a number of other shows, including Remington Steele.
Doreen Carvajal, a journalist for the New York Times and other publications, is the author of The Forgetting River.
Subhash Chandra is a literary critic and the author of The Fiction of J. D. Salinger: A Study in the Concept of Man.
Charlie Chaplin, who died in 1977, was a world-famous actor, director, and screenwriter.
Jane Chaplin, the daughter of Oona O’Neill and Charlie Chaplin, was born in 1957.
Patrice Chaplin is the former daughter-in-law of Charlie and Oona Chaplin and the author of Hidden Star, a biography of Oona Chaplin.
Mark David Chapman is serving a life sentence for the murder of John Lennon.
Thomas Childers is the author of many books on World War II, including In the Shadows of War.
Marcia Clark served as lead prosecutor in the O. J. Simpson murder trial and the trial of Robert Bardo, the killer of Rebecca Schaeffer.
Michael Clarkson is an author specializing in the topics of fear and stress.
Annabelle Cone teaches French at Dartmouth College.
Paul Corkery wrote for People magazine.
Donald Costello, professor emeritus of English at Notre Dame, is the author of the influential essay “The Language of ‘The Catcher in the Rye.’ ”
Catherine Crawford is a literary agent and the editor of If You Really Want to Hear About It: Writers on J. D. Salinger and His Work.
Lindsay Crouse is an actress who has starred in House of Games, Places in the Heart, and numerous other films and plays.
John Curran was an Associated Press reporter. He died in 2011.
John Dean was White House counsel from July 1970 to April 1973 and the key witness in the Watergate hearings. Since then, he has worked as an investment banker and written Conservatives Without Conscience, Blind Ambition, and other books.
Richard Deitzler was a classmate of J. D. Salinger at Ursinus College, in Collegeville, Pennsylavania.
Don DeLillo is the author of more than a dozen novels, including Underworld, White Noise, and Mao II.
Peter De Vries worked as a staff writer for the New Yorker from 1944 to 1967 and wrote numerous comic novels, including But Who Wakes the Bugler?, The Blood of the Lamb, and Madder Music. He died in 1993.
Joan Didion is a novelist, nonfiction writer, literary critic, and frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books. Her works include Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It As It Lays, The White Album, and The Year of Magical Thinking, which won the National Book Award in 2005.
E. L. Doctorow is the author of many novels, including Billy Bathgate, Ragtime, and The Book of Daniel. The recipient of a National Book Award, two PEN/Faulkner Awards, and three National Book Critics Circle Awards, he teaches at New York University.
Claire Douglas, a clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst, has been a training and supervisory analyst with the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles since 1992. The author of Translate This Darkness: The Life of Christiana Morgan, she lectures and writes books and articles on Jung and on women’s psychology. She was J. D. Salinger’s second wife, from 1953 to 1967, and is the mother of his two children.
Maureen Dowd is a Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial page columnist for the New York Times.
John Dryfhout is the author of The Work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
Helen Dudar was a cultural critic and journalist for many newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune. She died in 2002.
Dave Eggers is the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; he is the founder and editor of the independent publishing house McSweeney’s.
Mel Elfin was Newsweek’s Washington bureau chief from 1965 to 1985 and an editor at U.S. News & World Report from 1985 to 1998.
Michael Ellison is an actor who has appeared on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Crutch.
Betty Eppes, was a reporter for the Morning Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, from 1976 to 1990. In 1980 she interviewed J. D. Salinger.
Leslie Epstein is a professor at Boston University and the author of such novels as King of the Jews, Pandaemonium, and San Remo Drive.
Clifton Fadiman was the editor of the New Yorker’s book reviews from 1933 to 1943, when he became an editor for the Book-of-the-Month Club. He died in 1999.
William Faulkner is the author of such novels as The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom! He also wrote the screenplays for The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not. A recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, he died in 1962.
John Fitzgerald is the son of Paul Fitzgerald, who served with J. D. Salinger during World War II.
Paul Fitzgerald served with Salinger in the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) during World War II; the two men maintained a friendship over the next sixty years.
Fred Fogo is the author of I Read the News Today: The Social Drama of John Lennon’s Death. He is a communications professor at Westminster College in Salt Lake City.
Lacey Fosburgh worked as a staff reporter for the New York Times from 1968 to 1973 and, in that role, interviewed J. D. Salinger. She died in 1993.
Will Fowler is the author of over a dozen books on military history, including D-Day: The Normandy Landings of June 6, 1944.
Elizabeth Frank, a professor at Bard College, is the author of a Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of the poet and critic Louise Bogan.
Paul Fussell, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote many books on war and literature, including The Great War and Modern Memory. He died in 2012.
Gerard L. Gaudrault was a psychiatrist in New Hampshire.
David Geffen created Asylum Records in 1970 and Geffen Records in 1980; he was one of the three founders of the film production company Dream Works SKG.
Maxwell Geismar was a critic and the author of American Moderns: From Rebellion to Conformity, a Mid-Century View of Contemporary Fiction and Reluctant Radical: A Memoir. He died in 1979.
Martha Gellhorn was a longtime war correspondent and the author of many books, including The Heart of Another. Married to Ernest Hemingway during the early 1940s, she died in 1998.
Rudolf Christoph von Gersdorff was the chief of staff for the German Seventh Army during World War II. He died in 1980.
Elizabeth Gleick is a former book reviewer for Time magazine who is now an executive editor a
t People.
Sanford Goldstein is a translator of Japanese literature and the author of numerous articles on J. D. Salinger.
Richard Gonder was a roommate of J. D. Salinger at Valley Forge Military Academy.
Anne Goodman was a writer and book reviewer for various publications, including Harper’s and the New Republic, where she wrote an influential essay on The Catcher in the Rye called “Mad About Children.”
Adam Gopnik is the author of Paris to the Moon, among other books, and a staff writer for the New Yorker.
Barbara Graustark, an editor at the New York Times, is a former journalist with Newsweek.
George Dawes Green is a writer and actor. He wrote the novel The Juror and appeared in the TV series The Moth.
Lawrence Grobel is the author of books on Truman Capote, Al Pacino, John Huston, and Marlon Brando.
Gerold Gross, publisher and agent, has worked at Harcourt, Brace and Pantheon Books, and served as senior vice president of Macmillan Company.
Henry Grunwald was managing editor of Time magazine. He died in 2005.
John Guare is the author of more than two dozen plays, including Six Degrees of Separation, which won an Obie Award, and The House of Blue Leaves, which won four Tony awards. He was awarded the 2003 PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for drama.
Stephen Guirgis is the author of several plays, including Jesus Hopped the A Train and The Motherfucker with the Hat, which was nominated for six Tony Awards. He has written for such television shows as NYPD Blue and The Sopranos.
Frederick L. Gwynn is the coauthor of The Fiction of J. D. Salinger.
Doug Hackett is the manager of the police department of Cornish, New Hampshire.
Bart Hagerman served in the 17th Airborne Division during World War II and is the author of such books as War Stories: The Men of the Airborne.
Richard Haitch writes for the Nation.
Jack Hallett served in the U.S. military during World War II.
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