J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose "The Catcher in the Rye" shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.
Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.
"The Catcher in the Rye," with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made "Catcher" a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight and concern."
Enraged by all the "phonies" who make "me so depressed I go crazy," Holden soon became American literature's most famous anti-hero since Huckleberry Finn. The novel's sales are astonishing more than 60 million copies worldwide and its impact incalculable. Decades after publication, the book remains a defining expression of that most American of dreams to never grow up.
J.D. Salinger, reclusive literary giant who wrote 'Catcher in the Rye,' dead at age 91
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai..._in_the_rye_dead_at_age_91.html#ixzz0dvvwfzqE
Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.
"The Catcher in the Rye," with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made "Catcher" a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight and concern."
Enraged by all the "phonies" who make "me so depressed I go crazy," Holden soon became American literature's most famous anti-hero since Huckleberry Finn. The novel's sales are astonishing more than 60 million copies worldwide and its impact incalculable. Decades after publication, the book remains a defining expression of that most American of dreams to never grow up.
J.D. Salinger, reclusive literary giant who wrote 'Catcher in the Rye,' dead at age 91
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai..._in_the_rye_dead_at_age_91.html#ixzz0dvvwfzqE
