J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [206]
*The Herald Tribune died, but Wolfe’s article on William Shawn saved Breslin, Wolfe, and New York magazine, which thrives to this day.
*The available archives of The New Yorker are replete with correspondence between Salinger and the magazine’s editorial staff until shortly after the death of Gus Lobrano and the publication of “Zooey” in 1957. However, when Salinger began to work primarily—and eventually solely—with William Shawn, such correspondence disappeared from The New Yorker’s files. Whether at Salinger’s specific request or simply due to the reticence of both men to have their collaboration scrutinized by others, the unusual lack of documentation chronicling the production of these stories was probably deliberate.
*Seymour qualifies this example by stating that the deaths of young children were untimely “on the surface,” indicating a fatalistic acceptance of the will of God as well as his belief that such children were experiencing the process of reincarnation rather than death. Salinger is known to have declared that he did not believe in death.
19. The Poetry of Silence
J. D. Salinger’s public life as an author ended with “Hapworth 16, 1924.” In the decades to come, he would continue to write but never publish again. What followed spanned a generation of silence. To Salinger, his new life was tranquillity, a method of prayer as he exercised his faith through writing while avoiding the sin of ego. To the outside world, Salinger’s withdrawal was a frustration, and it created a mysterious void that many people were determined to fill in disregard of his pleas to be left alone. Salinger’s silence would prove to be a two-edged sword. It compounded the public fascination with him that had existed since the 1950s and allowed his legend to grow without contest, and as a consequence his name became synonymous with reclusion in the American psyche—something akin to an urban legend—and popular fascination with the man himself overgrew the public’s appreciation for his work.
There is a certain poetic justice to the lack of information regarding Salinger’s later years. The author always believed that readers’ interest should be confined to his work and that information unrelated to his published books or stories belonged to his private life alone. However, a number of events occurred after 1965 that helped shape Salinger’s professional legacy, demonstrating his personal feelings regarding his work and his decision to withdraw from the glare of public scrutiny.
Salinger’s home in Cornish, New Hampshire. Built in 1966 during his divorce, the house served as Salinger’s home for forty-four years. It was here that he died in 2010. (Corbis Images)
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Salinger’s marriage to Claire Douglas officially came to an end in 1967, although in truth, it had been over for years. During the summer of 1966, Claire began to see a doctor in nearby Claremont, New Hampshire, complaining of “nervous tensions, sleeplessness, and loss of weight.” The doctor could find no physical cause for the symptoms and, after analyzing Claire’s account of her personal life, attributed her disorders to “marital discord.”1 Armed with this diagnosis, Claire quickly hired a local lawyer and, on September 9, filed for divorce in the Sullivan County Superior Court.
For the most part, Claire’s formal complaint was indisputable. It stated that Salinger had refused to communicate with her “for long periods of time,” a direct reference to his stubborn work habits, and that his “indifference