J. D. Salinger would probably not be pleased by this. Not at all. Since word of his death at the end of last month, his name has been plastered all over the news, in magazines, and on countless blogs. Every famous and semi-famous writer of fiction has come out with a reflection on him, on his writing, on his mysterious silence. It seems everyone has something to say about this literary giant who effectively stopped speaking over forty years ago. Oh, how I wish they would quit it.
His passing is disorienting—first, how do we mourn a writer who has been withdrawn from the public for as long as we’ve known him? And second, how do we react to the barrage of text, the biographical revisions, the movies, the readers and critics who demand—that’s right, demand—that more of his works be published? I’m afraid this won’t be going away any time soon, so that lovers of Salinger’s works can go back to cherishing them as they have all these years—quietly and in private.
What’s to become of the rest of his writing, his personal papers, the huge stack of manuscripts he’s rumored to have been clacking away at in an echoey little bunker all these years? Do they exist? Did he have everything spectacularly burned? Who has he left it all to, and what will be published? And republished? At BookPeople, we booksellers are well aware of the publishing power associated with death. It’s morbid, perhaps, but it’s very real. And, despite the reverence I bear the Author himself, I’ll readily admit that I’d love to read more about the Glass clan, the young folks—hell, I would read a Maytag instruction manual if he wrote it. At any rate, lovers of Salinger and his characters are certainly not through with this mess yet. The man’s dead, can’t we just leave him alone already?
In the midst of the continuing hoopla, the editors over at local literary magazine American Short Fiction came up with a better way to mourn this loss: with his writing.
At the end of the month, on the hopefully damp evening of February 26th, ASF will co-sponsor a wake, of sorts, with the Harry Ransom Center here in Austin. On their behalf, I want to invite all you bird watchers to come at 7PM to the Prothro Theater at the Harry Ransom Center to hear A Tribute to J. D. Salinger. An astounding line-up of authors—Elizabeth Crane, Amelia Gray, Elizabeth McCracken, ZZ Packer, John Pipkin, and Nick Flynn—will read from Salinger’s published works and unpublished correspondence. That’s right: the Ransom Center will open a new collection of JDS’s unpublished stories, manuscripts, and letters, on display for the first time (!) at the event.
If, like me, you’ve been distressed over the splashy way people keep talking about the man, you should come out for this tribute. Come remember and celebrate a master of American fiction in the most high-hearted fashion we can imagine: with his stories.
— Jennifer Shapland
BookPeople 