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Jackson, also known as the “Tramp Cyclist,” was a famous vaudeville clown who traveled the world, enchanting audiences with his trick bicycle act. Dressed as a tramp and gesturing in mime, he would mount his bike and struggle to ride it as it slowly fell to pieces. In 1942, Jackson had just finished a performance at New York’s Roxy Theatre when he suffered a fatal heart attack. As he lay dying, the sound of his grateful audience was still within earshot and his last words were “They’re still applauding.” His son, Joe Jackson, Jr., took over the bicycle act upon his death, keeping it exactly as his father had performed it. Through their combined careers, Joe Jackson’s nickel-plated trick bicycle delighted audiences for a hundred years.

The vision of Seymour Glass at age five, joyously riding the handlebars of Joe Jackson’s disintegrating bicycle “all over the stage” and “around and around,” speaks volumes on the subject of trust and faith. And that is how, we are told, Seymour lived his life: so enraptured by the sheer exhilaration of living as to be unaware, or at least uncaring, of the decomposing forces around him. That is also how Salinger wrote his story, by ignoring the perils that his style and innovation would surely attract. Seymour and Salinger share the handlebars of Joe Jackson’s nickel-plated bicycle, and they also share the question that this scene inevitably raises. If Seymour Glass loved the fullness of living and rode it with such unsuspecting trust, why did he end his own life—and why did Salinger, enjoying the liberation of writing freely and without regard to opinion, similarly end the life of his authorship?

The sixth section of “Seymour” provides a glimpse over the shoulder of the writer at work and explores some of the reasons that Buddy has been absent from publishing: his difficulty in writing, health problems, and Seymour’s shifting image. In this, the most interactive portion of the novella, Buddy addresses the reader with increasing intimacy. As the narration loosens, letting go of self-awareness, Buddy becomes progressively liberated and happy. Within this passage, Buddy shares a letter written by Seymour in 1940. Addressed to “Dear Old Tyger That Sleeps,” a reference to the poem by William Blake, Seymour’s words directly reflect Salinger’s own philosophy on writing. “When was writing ever your profession?” Seymour asks. “It’s never been anything but your religion. Never.… Since it is your religion, do you know what you will be asked when you die? … Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out?”12 Buddy next offers a curious physical description of Seymour and a long narrative “home movie” inlaid with childhood memories that read like a series of Zen parables. Each reminiscence, every story and example that Buddy conjures, causes Seymour’s spirit to strengthen its hold over him until, by “Seymour”’s eighth and final segment, the relaying of Buddy’s “home movie” has clearly exhausted him. But it has also delivered enlightenment. Intensely satisfied, Buddy explains that he has come to peace with his life, the world around him, and perhaps even his brother’s death.

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Buddy’s account is so tinged with personal sadness that it actually forces multiple emotions. And well it should, for “Seymour—an Introduction” is actually written on a number of levels. If Salinger had indeed purged his literary wardrobe of pretentious black neckties by delivering “Zooey,” he soon fashioned another, far more garish accessory to dress up this story: a necktie that glowed in the dark and spun around.* Much of “Seymour” is vaudeville, and Salinger knew it. Through the work, he astounds readers with a three-ring circus, with all the acts occurring simultaneously.

Presumably, the novella is an installment of the Glass family series, a narration by Buddy Glass to expand the chronicle of his family. Here biography and religious instruction merge together as the events of Seymour’s life double as episodes of spiritual