10 Things You Might Not Know About J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger was just 32 when he wrote The Catcher in the Rye, the novel that would secure his place in literary history. To date the book has sold over 65 million copies, but it is Salinger's only published novel, alongside his three collections of short stories. Throughout his lifetime, the man who created the ground breaking and (for the time) hugely subversive teenage protagonist, Holden Caulfield, was the focus of much public speculation, his reclusive tendencies fuelling the myths that obscured him. Today marks the fifth anniversary of Salinger's death, aged 91, and in celebration of his remarkable life, we bring you ten things you may not know about the mysterious author.

1. Salinger served in the US Army during WWII and was involved in the invasion of Normandy in 1944. He is alleged to have carried six chapters of The Catcher in the Rye with him when he landed on Utah Beach on D-Day.

2. Salinger explored and studied a number of religions during his lifetime, including Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Christian Science and Scientology.

3. He was a keen actor at school, displaying a much greater interest in acting than writing. In his yearbook, he signed with the names of the charcaters he had played.

4. The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most frequently banned books of the past 50 years, due to Holden Caulfield’s perpetual swearing and candid discussion of sex.

5. Many know that Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's assassin, was obsessed with The Catcher in the Rye. He once said in a statement, “The reason I killed John Lennon was to promote the reading of J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye”. But did you know that police found a copy of the novel in John Hinckley Jr’s apartment after he shot Ronald Reagan in 1981? While in 1989, Robert John Bardo murdered actress Rebecca Schaeffer and was found to be carrying a copy of the book when he was arrested.

6. While Holden Caulfield speaks poorly of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Salinger actually maintained a personal correspondence with Hemingway and the two held a mutual respect for one another.

7. Similarly Caulfield declared that he hated the movies, but Salinger was in fact a film fanatic, his favourites including The Thirty-Nine Steps, The Thin Man, The Lady Vanishes, Lost Horizon and The Pink Panther. Salinger's other hobbies included listening to the Three Tenors – Jose Carreras was his favorite; watching tennis – he admired John McEnroe and Tim Henman; and eating Burger King hamburgers, which he once noted were better than those from other chains.

8. Franny and Zooey was originally published as two separate stories in The New Yorker magazine. "Franny" appeared in the magazine in January 1955, and "Zooey" in May 1957. Salinger published "Franny and Zooey" together as a book in July 1961, dedicating the book to The New Yorker editor William Shawn.

9. Despite his reputation as a hermit, Salinger was more sociable than people gave him credit for – he was often seen out drinking with Vivien Leigh, for instance, and there are pictures of him on dates with Vogue models.

10. Salinger was a tough cookie. In her memoir, his daughter Margaret A. Salinger noted, "The only time I have ever seen my father cry in my whole life was the day he watched JFK’s funeral procession on television.”

Words by Daisy Woodward
Research by Arabella Noortman