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Giroux was surprised and delighted. In view of Salinger’s recent successes, he had assumed that every publisher in America had already offered a book deal. He eagerly promised to publish Salinger’s novel upon completion, and the two men shook hands to seal the deal. When Salinger left Giroux’s office, he felt relieved of the burden of hunting for a publisher and could now devote himself to the book.

A similar event occurred in August 1950, when Catcher was close to completion. On the eighteenth, Salinger was contacted by the British publishing house Hamish Hamilton. The company’s founder, Jamie Hamilton, had read “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor” in World Review and had been so impressed that he wrote to Salinger himself, telling him that he expected to be haunted by “Esmé” “for years to come,” and inquiring about the British rights to his short stories.7 Just as Giroux had, Hamilton envisioned publishing a Salinger collection. Salinger offered Hamilton the British publishing rights to The Catcher in the Rye instead.

Jamie Hamilton would play a significant role in Salinger’s life for years to come. Together with New Yorker founder Harold Ross, Hamilton filled a void left in Salinger by the absence of Whit Burnett. In the case of Hamilton, this comparison would have a bitter irony. But as Salinger was finishing The Catcher in the Rye, Hamilton and Ross were the two individuals whom he most genuinely liked and professionally respected.

At first glance, Harold Ross and Jamie Hamilton appear remarkably similar. Both men were self-starters and had forged the most respectable of literary establishments. Ross had fathered The New Yorker in 1925 from his apartment on Manhattan’s East Side, forcibly nurturing it into the most reputable literary magazine in America. Jamie Hamilton had launched the publishing house of Hamish Hamilton (proud of his Scottish heritage, Hamilton used his Celtic name “Hamish” rather than the English “James” when naming the company) in 1931. His editorial prowess and strength of character soon established Hamish Hamilton as one of the most innovative publishers in Britain. Both men attracted the finest talents through their intense interest in their authors. Yet Ross and Hamilton were actually very different people, and Salinger was attracted to them for very different reasons.

Harold Ross was unusually indulgent of his authors, many of whom became close personal friends. Overlooking Ross’s somewhat bellicose style, Salinger described him as “a good, quick, intuitive, child-like man.”8 What especially drew Salinger to Ross were his childlike qualities, which managed to survive despite the weight of responsibility.

That Salinger should connect with Jamie Hamilton was inevitable. They were intense personalities cut from the same cloth. A former Olympic athlete, Hamilton was both competitive and tenacious. He was an emotional man who disliked critics and viewed the world in terms of “us” and “them.” When he thought that someone had wronged him, he had the ability to cut him or her off completely, refusing even to enter the same room. Above all, both men were driven by ambition. Such individuals often connect through their similarities, but Hamilton and Salinger were perhaps too similar, and the ambition of one man would eventually clash with the ambition of the other.

• • •

After working on the novel for a year, in the autumn of 1950, Salinger completed The Catcher in the Rye. The achievement was a catharsis. It was confession, purging, prayer, and enlightenment all encased in a voice so distinct that it would alter American culture. More than a collection of reminiscences or a tale of teenage angst, the novel was a cleansing event in Salinger’s life. Holden Caulfield, and the pages that contained him, had been the author’s constant companion for most of his adult years. Those pages were so precious to Salinger that he had carried them on his person throughout the war. In 1944, he had confessed to Whit Burnett that he needed them with him for support and inspiration. Pages of The Catcher