This book had its origins on a rare rainy day in Los Angeles when I saw two photographs of J. D. Salinger, one superimposed over the other in a used bookstore known as much for its dust as its books. The first photograph was the iconic image of Salinger from the 1951 back jacket of The Catcher in the Rye. The second was taken many years later and depicted a haunted man in the winter of a difficult life. I spent nine years working on this book, trying to reconcile those two photographs and tell as complete a story as possible about Jerome David Salinger.
This book initially grew out of a documentary film I directed called Salinger, which was released theatrically in 2013 by The Weinstein Company and is forthcoming in 2014 from American Masters on PBS. While the origin of this book can be found in many of the interviews I conducted for that film, the book took on a life of its own when David Shields and I began studying the thousands of pages of interview transcripts, organizing and editing the interview passages into sections and chapters, conducting important new research, and adding our own analyses and commentaries.
Most biographies include photographs of and letters to and from the biographical subject, but in the case of someone as secretive as Salinger, photographs of Salinger and letters from him were extremely difficult to come by. For nearly a decade, I conducted a worldwide search for information that would help to unravel the enigma that is Salinger. I am honored to present it here and extremely grateful to everyone who provided photographs and letters; without this material, this book would not have been possible, and it would certainly not be anywhere nearly as complete an account as it is now.
Jonathan Karp, my publisher, for believing in this project from the very beginning and for pursuing it with incredible passion and conviction;
Jofie Ferrari-Adler, my editor, for his thoughtful suggestions, spirited debates, and intelligent criticisms on issues that mattered;
A. Scott Berg, the late (great) Gore Vidal, and Ben Yagoda for the kind advice they gave me during many phone calls when I thought I would never complete this project;
military historian John McManus for his careful review of the World War II sections of this book and historian Robert Abzug for his detailed review of the material that formed the basis for the chapter on Kaufering, the subcamp of Dachau that Salinger walked into in 1945 and as these pages argue, never walked out of;
the Fitzgerald family for allowing me to publish, for the first time, the extraordinary photos of J. D. Salinger taken by Paul Fitzgerald from 1945 to 1991 and Salinger’s letters to Paul from 1945 to 2008. For more than sixty years Paul Fitzgerald never spoke of his relationship with J. D. Salinger, and his name cannot be found in any previous article or book about Salinger. I want to thank his family for trusting me with telling this important part of Salinger’s story. The Fitzgerald photos and letters were invaluable to gaining a full understanding of J. D. Salinger’s complex life and I cannot imagine this book without them;
Jean Miller for sharing—in these pages for the first time—her story and portions of Salinger’s letters. Jean has a remarkable story to tell, beginning when she met Salinger at the age of fourteen, that could not be fully contained in these pages. I look forward to her memoir on her relationship with Salinger;
Eberhard Alsen for his many research trips to Germany, which I directed and funded over a six-year period. His commitment led to important new information and documents on Sylvia Welter, Salinger’s first wife, his stay in a mental hospital, and other aspects of Salinger’s service in World War II;
I want to express my deep gratitude to my sources, the great majority of whom spoke to me on the record. I personally interviewed more than two hundred people over nine years, and while not everyone appears by name, their important contributions are reflected on every page. I am particularly indebted to the residents of Cornish, New Hampshire, and Windsor, Vermont, for answering my questions in person and over the phone and directing me to others who might do the same. I am also grateful to former colleagues of Salinger’s at the New Yorker who agreed to speak with me off the record. In every case where information was used from a source who would not go on the record, the information was confirmed by at least one additional independent source before appearing in these pages;
the gifted and generous Don Winslow for keeping the “anytime, anywhere” promise that he made to me in the dedication of The Kings of Cool. You are a great writer and an extraordinary friend;
Russell David Harper, revising editor of the 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, for his careful vetting of this manuscript;
Alonzo Wickers at Davis Wright Tremaine and Michael Donaldson at Donaldson and Callif for their intelligent, methodical, and truly exhaustive (and exhausting) legal vetting on this complex project, which spreads across three different mediums: publishing (Simon & Schuster), film (The Weinstein Company), and television (American Masters). I also want to thank Robert Offer and Shelby Weiser and Toni Boim of Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern who worked on this project daily for years, litigation counsel Max Sprecher and Emily Remes at Simon & Schuster.
Despite the project’s consuming nine long years, critical information was still coming in during the final weeks (and even the final days) before going to print and I frustrated many with my insistence on writing and revising until the alarm bells rang. This certainly made for a better book but was a daily challenge for the hardworking men and women behind the scenes. I want to extend a very special thanks to Irene Kheradi for her unwavering support and enormous tolerance and her entire team at Simon & Schuster for their dedication, hard work, and long hours. Additionally I want to thank Nancy Singer for her tireless work and vision and Christopher Lin for his creative design. Everyone at Simon & Schuster worked under enormous time constraints in the closing months and this book would not have been possible without the commitment shown by every single department.
Also, Deborah Randall for her extraordinary producing efforts over nine years. I simply could not have made Salinger without her counsel and many remarkable contributions.
Anyone who writes about J. D. Salinger’s life owes a debt to the many writers and reporters who have covered him. I want to acknowledge two previous Salinger biographers, Ian Hamilton and, of course, Paul Alexander, the latter of whom gave countless hours of assistance, support, and counsel to this project for nearly a decade. I also want to acknowledge Joyce Maynard’s and Margaret Salinger’s memoirs. Readers can debate the complicated motivations behind these books, but they have made an important contribution to our understanding of the life and work of J. D. Salinger. I was also helped by the work of John Skow, Ron Rosenbaum, Ernest Havemann, James Lundquist, Warren French, Eberhard Alsen, Harold Bloom, John Updike, Mary McCarthy, Alfred Kazin, Joan Didion, Frederick L. Gwynn, Joseph L. Blotner, William F. Belcher, and James W. Lee. Each of these writers valuably assisted my efforts to unravel the mystery of J. D. Salinger;
Cary Goldstein, Richard Rhorer, and their teams for their hard work behind the scenes;
Jonathan Harr for A Civil Action and Steven Bach for Final Cut, two books that proved extremely helpful to me during this process despite having nothing whatsoever to do with J. D. Salinger;
I want to give special thanks to Bonnie Rowan for nine years of extremely challenging research work in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Missouri, and other locations where she found material that shaped this project;
Natalie Mann for her extraordinary dedication and the countless contributions she made;
at The Weinstein Company, I want to thank Harvey Weinstein, David Glasser, Jennifer Malloy, Mark Gooder, Stephen Bruno, Erik Lomis, and Dani Weinstein;
at American Masters, Susan Lacy for being the first believer in this project and Stephen Segaller for being there on the day it really counted;
Carolyn K. Reidy;
Jim and Ann Gianopulos;
David Ellison;
Jim Cameron and Jon Landau;
Michael Mann for being both friend and mentor. Since I was nine years old I have aspired to the standard that you have set. I am incredibly grateful for the lessons you have passed onto me during years of collaboration;
J.C. for support, encouragement, and laughter;
Jean, Thomas, and Ottis Winslow, Buddy Squires, Betty Eppes, Michael Clarkson, David Victor Harris, Seán Hemingway, Brian Lipson, Jeffrey Doe, Ethel Nelson, Leila Hadley Luce, Alex Kershaw, Arne Schmidt, A. E. Hotchner, Joe Lee, Lois Lee and Braden Peter Lee, Ana Castillo, Regis Kimble, Langdon F. Page, Lorne Balfe, Craig and Stephanie Fanning, Michael McDermott and the McDermott family for their counsel, contributions, and friendship;
My deepest gratitude to Kristen for encouraging me nine long years ago to take this journey, knowing full well how relentlessly I would pursue it.
David Shields for his commitment to this project, particularly in the closing months, and for steadfastly believing it would happen years before there was a publishing, film, or television deal. I also want to thank the Shields family and Natalie Shields for her creative design work behind the scenes;
Finally, I want to thank Jerome David Salinger for living such an extraordinary life and one that I devoted nearly a decade to telling honestly. As do millions of others around the world, I look forward with great anticipation to reading the work Salinger diligently produced from 1965 until his death in 2010.
I would like to thank Laurie and Natalie for keeping all my faculties intact.