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Salinger Letters Reveal His Dream of Visiting Williamsburg
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 11, 2010
Modified Feb 11, 2010
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By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 11, 2010
Modified Feb 11, 2010
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In what is likely just the first of such discoveries, eleven previously unpublicized letters from J.D. Salinger have been unsealed by The Morgan Library and Museum, and are being prepared for exhibition. The correspondence between the author and Michael Mitchell, the designer of the first cover of The Catcher in the Rye, "reveals an enduring fascination with pop culture and politics that is at odds with the popular mythology of the past half-century of Mr. Salinger as an odd recluse," the Times reports. These revelations reportedly include:
Sharp references — sometimes a bit too sharp — to household names like John Wayne, Nancy Reagan and even Eddie Murphy... A night at the theater in 1951 ended with his being invited to sup at the elegant Chelsea [London] home of the couple who starred in the show: Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. “Naturally, [over cocktails] some gin went up my nose. I damn near left by the window.”
Of most interest to Salinger fans is one 1966 letter in which he refers to an accumulation of "ten, twelve years’ work" that includes "two particular scripts — books really — that I’ve been hoarding at and picking at for years." Oh, and in another letter Salinger fantasized about visiting Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in "'the faint hope that some kindly old Hasid from the eighteenth century' would invite him home for matzoh ball soup or a cup of tea."
The letters were donated to The Morgan by Carter Burden 1998, who bought them from Mitchell. According to the Times, museum officials kept the letters’ contents under wraps, "even from their own staff, so long as Mr. Salinger was alive, out of a voluntary abundance of caution." Once these and others are made public, maybe Hollywood can option the rights to make a big movie about Salinger's life!
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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