J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [192]
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Salinger’s fourth and, as it would turn out, final book was published by Little, Brown and Company on January 28, 1963. Like Franny and Zooey, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour—an Introduction was a union of two Glass stories previously published in The New Yorker and would simply bear the titles of those two stories. Salinger had decided to publish the book in 1960, at the same time he decided to publish Franny and Zooey, and arrangements were made for the production of both collections simultaneously. He had always intended that Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour—an Introduction would follow Franny and Zooey, and its release was more in keeping with the publisher’s itineraries than Salinger’s reaction to the critical derision for Franny and Zooey or its enormous public success.
Like the previous collection, Raise High and Seymour came with Salinger’s usual list of demands. There was to be no cover art, marquees, photographs, or added text other than that written by Salinger himself. There was also to be very little advance publicity. The few advertisements allowed for Raise High and Seymour were sober and restrained. A full-page ad appeared in Publishers Weekly on January 7, announcing the book’s upcoming release. It contained no illustration other than a depiction of the book itself. On April 7, The New York Times Book Review ran an ad that portrayed a pyramid of books, similar to previous ads for Franny and Zooey. In fact, the release of Raise High and Seymour was a replica of the process undergone by the previous collection except that the ads began far closer to the release date.
At first glance, it might seem brazen of Salinger to release a new collection—especially one containing the perplexing “Seymour—an Introduction”—after the onslaught of critical reviews following Franny and Zooey. But by 1963, Salinger’s fatalism regarding his work had grown so firm that the opinions of professional readers had lost their force with him. Indeed, his fears that he would disappear into his work had now given way to complete submission. In his dust jacket commentary for Raise High and Seymour, Salinger revealed the extent to which he had become enmeshed in his Glass series; and he did so without apology. Rather than confiding fears that he might bog down in his work, as he had previously, he explained to readers that he had coupled Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour—an Introduction so they would not collide with forthcoming segments of the Glass series. He assured them that new additions to the Glass saga were in the works, currently “waxing, dilating—each in its own way,” both on paper and in his mind. And if he had become entrapped by the Glass characters, Salinger revealed, he considered it a blissful imprisonment. “Oddly,” he noted, “the joys and satisfactions of working on the Glass family peculiarly increase and deepen for me with the years.”11
The year 1963, then, promised a future replete with Salinger works—books and stories that the author himself promised would continue the chronicle of the Glass family. Some of the pieces were yet developing, while others were near completion. The promise was not an empty one. When Little, Brown released Raise High and Seymour, it had already begun negotiations to pay Salinger an advance of $75,000 toward the publication of his next book.*
As might be expected, the critics were far less willing to suffer