J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [154]
The decision to construct a hermitage in the woods has long been derided as the greatest symbol of Salinger’s seclusion from the world. In hindsight, the choice wreaked havoc on his personal life. But he remained convinced that his work was worth the sacrifice. His insistence upon maintaining a daily routine that cloistered him away from his family speaks to the stubbornness of his ambition. In the comfort of his own design, freed from the distractions that had always plagued him, the richness of his art came vividly to life. Within his cloister, reality and imagination were allowed to blur, and the bunker became the realm of the Glasses. Here the characters of his imagination reigned supreme, dictating their stories to him as spirits might channel messages to a medium from other worlds. With no outside disruption to obstruct them, they became as real to the author as flesh-and-blood people.
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Come spring, Peggy’s ailments began to subside and Salinger boasted that she was blossoming into a happy child full of smiles and laughter and that he and Claire were falling more deeply in love with her each passing day.5 Additions were made to the still-primitive cottage. A running-water system was finally set up, complete with a washing machine, and Salinger reluctantly installed a telephone in his private bunker, warning Claire that he was to be disturbed for emergencies only. The season’s thaw also brought visits to the Maxwells, always with Peggy in tow. Salinger joyfully tended to his garden and devoted himself to a diet of organic foods. He could be spotted driving into town in his jeep or in nearby Windsor, picking up supplies. In Windsor, Salinger developed a lifelong friendship with Olin and Marguerite Tewksbury, local farmers from whom he often bought produce. Salinger spent hours sitting on the Tewksburys’ porch with Olin, surveying the fields and discussing local events while Claire introduced Marguerite to the then-radical concept of organic farming, a method the Tewksburys slowly came to embrace. Though corn and fertilizer were accepted topics of conversation with the Tewksburys, Salinger’s work was not. That subject, Marguerite later recalled, was strictly taboo.6
Most anticipated by the Salingers was the springtime arrival of their nearest neighbors, Judge Billings Learned Hand and his wife, Frances. An elderly couple,* the Hands spent only six months a year in Cornish, arriving with the thaw and retreating to New York before the onslaught of winter. When they were in residence, dinner at the Hands’ was a weekly ritual for Salinger and Claire; there they enjoyed reading aloud together and discussing current events and spiritual and social topics, as well as daily life in Cornish. During the winter months, Salinger wrote to Hand frequently, keeping the judge updated on what was going on during his absence. The enthusiasm with which Salinger and Claire (and, when she grew older, Peggy) looked forward to the arrival of their neighbors cannot be overstated. On the Hands’ return after the long winter, Salinger wrote with grateful relief, “They bring only peace and joy, those two.”7
Serendipity had always been a remarkable aspect of Salinger’s life. He often encountered the right person at exactly the right time. Had he not studied under Whit Burnett, he might well have gone into acting. He had met Hemingway at the very moment his soul needed an anchor. He had been approached by Jamie Hamilton when he most craved a kindred spirit and was exasperated with his editors at Little, Brown. William Shawn had entered his life when he most needed professional affirmation. And Claire’s return in 1955 had saved him from a pit of despair that might well have consumed him. Salinger’s friendship with