Salinger Page #9

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with a sudden suicide

following a conversation

in which something

couldn't get said.

They are characters

who wanna get out of the world,

and the stories end when they're

given permission to leave.

It's amazing.

It's a strange effect.

One doesn't bring the

degree of obsession

that creates perfection

unless there is just

unappeasable hunger,

unappeasable sadness

and what I would call a wound.

You don't get

that kind of perfection

unless you're trying

to heal something

that's incredibly badly hurt.

In 1954, I was in college,

and Jerry would take me

for an evening in New York.

He would

take me to the Palm Room

or we'd go to the theatre,

we'd go to the Blue Angel.

I remember once driving back

on that east-side highway

and seeing

the George Washington Bridge

and thinking

how absolutely beautiful it was,

insane how beautiful it was,

and he laughed.

He said, "Jean, you've got to

learn not to say the obvious."

And I felt,

"Well, you know, he's right."

I was still young,

but here was this fascinating

man who seemed to like me.

But in all those letters,

it says,

"My work has to come first."

And he's sorry to be

such an unromantic man

and I'd have every right to

tell him to go jump in the lake

and go off with some

less neurotic person.

But once in a while,

he would come and fetch me...

...and we'd drive up to Cornish.

We would take a walk

in the afternoon and talk

and then dinner.

And then we'd look at

television by the fire -

Lawrence Welk or Liberace

or something like that-

and we'd dance.

I remember one night,

I said, "Let's dance."

It was fun.

We would look at the people

on the television, dancing,

and we just would waltz or...

laughing all the time.

He seemed filled with joy to me

a great deal of the time.

But there was never a inkling

of anything physical

between us.

Jerry Salinger

remembered me always

on that pier in Daytona Beach.

I am the one who changed it.

We were in

the back seat of a taxi

and I turned and kissed him.

Not soon after the taxi,

we went to Montreal

for the weekend.

We went up to our room

and... we went to bed.

And I told him I was a virgin.

And he didn't like that.

He didn't want the

responsibility of that, I guess.

He just didn't like it.

And then the next day,

we were flying to Boston,

with me on to New York

and he on to West Lebanon,

and somehow in the airplane,

he was told that

his plane was cancelled.

And I began laughing,

because I was delighted

that we could

spend the afternoon together,

particularly after what had

just happened the night before.

And I saw this veil

come down on his face.

Just like this.

This look of horror and hurt.

It was a terrible look.

It was a look

that conveyed everything.

I think all of a sudden,

he saw me

in an entirely different light.

He hustled me

right onto a plane.

I didn't have a plane

till later in the day.

He went right to the desk,

got the ticket changed,

hustled me right on the plane.

I knew I had come

between him and his work.

And it was over.

Wow. How do you describe

Claire Douglas?

In many ways, Claire Douglas

will be the widow Salinger.

You know, there were women

after Claire,

but she's... she's the wife.

Salinger

attended a party one night

where he met this

captivating, attractive,

personable young woman

who was 19 years old.

And Salinger, who was 34,

was instantly attracted to her.

She's just the kind of a lady

you think with a long dress

and a neat hairdo... and with

a glass of wine in her hands

talking with lots of

New York people.

Yeah.

Her role... just

didn't seem right.

Her childhood was not one

that set her up with

any kind of foundation.

She was sent off

to convent boarding school

at age five,

in and out of

eight different foster homes,

off to another boarding school,

and the summer between

her junior and senior year,

met my father.

Many critics

contend that Claire

was the inspiration for Franny.

And on February 17, 1955,

J.D. Salinger married

Claire Douglas in Vermont.

Salinger gave a copy

of the story to Claire

as their wedding present.

'Franny' became

a national cultural event.

It had this kind of

cliffhanger ending

where the main character,

Franny, fainted.

And people were wondering

what happened - was she...

...intoxicated,

pregnant or what?

On December 10, 1955,

J.D. Salinger became a father.

His daughter, Margaret,

was born.

The way he viewed Claire

changed after that.

Before that, she had been

the late-teen/early 20s woman

that he was fascinated with.

Now she was a woman.

She was a mother.

And I think

the birth of that child

had a permanent effect

on their relationship.

When I started

taking care of his kids,

Claire was due to have Matthew.

And Jerry knew me.

Back in the early '50s,

when I was in high school,

there was a soda fountain

right in town

that most of us gathered.

And Jerry Salinger used to come

right in and be part of that.

So I knew him from then.

He was just one of the guys.

So Jerry asked me

to help Claire with Margaret.

We called her Peggy.

Jerry built a small building

down over the hill

from the house.

It was just

a little square house.

And that's where he would go

down, any time, day or night,

go in and shut the door,

and you wouldn't see him

for a week or longer,

'cause he got into

a writing mode

and had to be left

totally alone.

Claire was not allowed

to bother him.

Nobody could enter the bunker.

It was the safe place

and a sacred place for him.

Salinger installed cup hooks

upon which he would place scenes

he had written.

There were notes tacked up

all over the walls.

It was the place in which

Salinger became the characters.

It was the place that was his

and his Glass family's.

No-one else's.

So in 1955, Salinger

gave birth to two families -

his own...

and the Glass family.

McGOWAN:
The Glass family were

seven children, all geniuses,

who each appeared on a show

called 'It's a Wise Child',

the sons and daughters

of two vaudevillians.

Seymour, the oldest, was the

greatest genius of them all,

the most spiritual,

the most artistic,

and he commits suicide.

And that informs their

entire lives from then on.

'Franny' was quickly followed

by a wonderful long story

called 'Raise High

the Roof Beam, Carpenters'

about characters

of that same family.

The Glass family

and Salinger's real family

would actually compete with

each other for his attention

and his affection.

How weird is it

when your father is gone

but you can actually

see where he is,

but you can't go disturb him?

What does that do to a child

psychologically

when that's your childhood,

that's your youth?

No-one said,

"Don't talk about this.

"Don't think that."

I mean, you don't

have to to a kid.

Kids pick up what

the elephants are in the room

that the family's

not talking about.

By the time Matthew was born,

you'd think Claire

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