Salinger

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1

So it's 1979.

I'm 20 years old.

I get an assignment

from 'Newsweek' magazine

to photograph this author.

I'm like, "Great."

And they were like, "it's not

quite that easy this time, Mike,

"because he doesn't like

to be photographed.

"We don't have an address or

a telephone number to give you,

"but we do know he picks up

his mail in Windsor, Vermont."

So the first day, after

sitting here for four hours,

drinking Pepsi and eating

Cheetos, making myself sick...

...didn't happen.

I decided, "it's 5:30.

The post office is closed.

"Nobody's gonna come

get their mail that day."

Then I just walked the streets

of Hanover late at night.

Started to wonder

if somebody tipped him off.

So the next day, I came back.

One man came out

of the post office.

I photographed him, wrote down

the license plate number,

but it wasn't him.

So I waited.

And then this Jeep pulls up,

but I don't see his face.

He gets out and he goes into

the post office really quickly,

and as he came back out...

Newsroom.

McDERMOTT:
I got it.

I got Salinger.

Thinking back on the guys

who sat around the poker table,

what distinguished Jerry

out of that pack was that

there was in him no doubt

he was going to be published,

no doubt that he had

an enormous talent

and no doubt that everybody else

at the poker table

was inferior to him.

His work was ordained by God.

His work was his way

to enlightenment.

He was put on this earth

to work, to write.

'Catcher in the Rye'

caught my attention

when it first came out.

There had not been

a voice like that-

so personal, so revealing.

It seemed like somebody

stripping the layers

away from his soul.

It said on the cover, "This

book will change your life."

And I bought the book,

but I was afraid to read it

because I didn't

want my life changed.

It's magical - you're a little

like, "How'd he do that?

"How did he put it

all together that way?"

And lead me through it

in such a way

that I would just land like

that in that final statement,

where you're just

so grateful to him

and you wanna go find him -

like you're doing now.

It is

an extraordinary phenomenon

how many millions and millions

and millions of people

came to that book.

'Catcher in the Rye' has

sold 60 million copies.

That's an unprecedented figure.

And continues to sell, by

the way, 250,000 copies a year.

It's defined who we are

as an American culture.

A long-lost sibling had arrived,

and it was Holden Caulfield,

and he became

part of our conversation.

Like a whole generation,

I thought he was

writing about me.

To be on the cover

of 'Time' magazine in 1961

was something that went to

statesmen and Nobel Laureates.

"You owe us another book.

"I mean, after all,

we rewarded you

"with fame, with money.

"We said you're one of

"the important writers

of the century.

"Now, come on,

let's have some more."

And then he doesn't give it.

"How dare you

turn your back on us?

"We're your fans. You've

gotten inside our heads."

The great mystery is

why he stopped.

Jerry had

scaled heights, big success.

At the height of that success,

he disappears.

I've heard that

he has a huge bunker.

There has been a rumour

for many years

that Salinger

continues to write.

And there would be

long stretches of time

where he wouldn't come out

of the bunker at all.

He sort of became

the Howard Hughes of his day.

- Mr A.E.

- Oh, there he is!

- How the hell did you get here?

- How are you? My God.

It was the year

after the war ended,

and the only person I knew

who had a job

was a man named Don Congdon,

who was the fiction editor

of 'Collier's magazine.

And we used to play poker,

maybe twice a week -

nickels and dimes,

not much of a game.

And one of the players was

a tall, lanky, dark gentleman

named Jerry Salinger.

Do you remember down here with

Jerry? After the poker games?

Yeah? We". Of course. Yeah.

The end of the evening,

we would go over

to Chumley's bar and grill,

which is an old, old

hangout for writers.

So everybody in here

was convinced that

they were the next Hemingway

or whatever,

except for Salinger, who didn't

wanna be the next Hemingway.

Jerry himself said,

"There's been no great writers

from Melville until me."

He dismissed everybody -

Theodore Dreiser,

Hemingway, Steinbeck - they were

all second-rate talents.

And then it dawned on me -

of all those writers,

Herman Melville was

the only one that was dead,

so it was alright.

He was the only writer

I ever knew

who talked about his characters

as if they were real people.

And it was very strange,

this thing,

because he made them

real in his stories,

they became real for him.

And because they were

so real for him,

I began to think of them

as real,

I began to see them as real.

His attitude,

and he lived as if

he was really one of us -

scrabbling and trying to

get along best as we could.

And I was pretty shocked

to discover that

he literally lived

with his parents

in a very posh apartment

on Park Avenue,

that he had been to a succession

of posh eastern schools -

kicked out of most of them -

that he really came from

a country club society.

But it didn't seem to make

any difference with him.

He wasn't impressed at all

with the life that he had lived.

And I think that all

becomes very apparent

when eventually he writes

the one book that he writes,

and that's 'Catcher in the Rye'.

Salinger's father, Solomon,

was the son of a rabbi,

an importer of cheese

and meats - very unkosher.

His mother was Catholic -

her name was Marie,

which she changed to Miriam

to be accepted by

her husband's Jewish family.

He was very down on education.

"Don't believe everything

your professors say.

"They're just giving you

information.

"Get your own information

on your own terms."

I think

that Salinger understood

something about the culture

long before the culture

understood it about itself.

He saw fakes everywhere.

A woman asked Salinger,

"Mr Salinger, what does

the 'J.D.' stand for?"

And he smiled sheepishly and

said, "Juvenile delinquent."

After getting

kicked out of prep school,

his father decided

he needed discipline,

he needed structure,

and he shipped him off

to a military academy.

Valley Forge is important

for two real reasons.

Number one - that's where

Salinger really

got his act together.

And number two - that's where

Salinger first began to write.

Salinger wrote at night

by flashlight under the covers.

He was always writing.

What I have here

is J.D. Salinger's yearbook

from the Valley Forge

Military Academy.

It's an extraordinary item.

He signed it not only

in his own name

but he signed the names of

the characters that he played

in the various plays

in which he performed,

because he wanted

to be an actor.

When he was in high school,

he announced that his ambition

was to succeed Robert Benchley

as the theatre critic

for the 'New Yorker'.

His father thought

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