Description:

Salinger J. D.



J.D. Salinger ALS: "Two non-abstract types ought to be able to work out something practical."

 

1p TLS signed by American author J.D. Salinger as "As ever, Jerry" at the bottom. Typed on vivid canary yellow paper, 8.5" x 11". Although Salinger's actual letter is undated and simply reads "Monday," it was written in response to an April 2, 1965 letter from correspondent Joyce Miller Hodgins, a contemporary copy of whose letter is included also. A typographical error has been corrected in the third paragraph by inserting a backslash. Salinger's letter is accompanied by a stamped and postmarked envelope addressed to "Mrs. Joyce Hodgins, 48-A Burnside Avenue, Somerville, Mass. 02144" from the return address listed as "Box 32, Windsor, Vt. 05089." Salinger's letter is in near fine condition, with expected light paper folds. The envelope is letter-opened at top, else near fine. Joyce's letter on onion skin is toned, and has a few chipped edges and areas of isolated loss.

 

Joyce Miller Hodgins had been a staff writer at The New Yorker, where Salinger had published most of his short stories since 1942. It's likely that Salinger met Joyce through his ties to the magazine.  Although most believe that their relationship was never romantic, Salinger's biographer Kenneth Slawenski speculates that Salinger may have been interested in Hodgins.

 

Joyce's letter is certainly very playful and flirtatious. She wrote "Jerry" to send him a poem, and also to let him know that she had changed jobs: "I think of you often, with affection and admiration and infinite kindness. Perhaps we'll meet for tea someday, say at the Biltmore or the Ritz, and this time, I'll flirt with you over my fan. Most affectionately, and with best wishes always…"

 

J.D. Salinger replied in part: "It would be fine, I agree, if we could arrange a meeting soon. Two non-abstract types ought to work out something practical. I don't know how, at the moment, but probably something will come to mind. The truth be said, the non-abstract truth, the season of the year puts me in mind of subway-tale finales, in an unabashed extreme way. At one point or another, we really should have/arranged for the setting and action. On the other hand, considering what you told me on the phone about emotional involvement, it's probably better we didn't get any more idiosyncratic notions that we already had. So hard to know for sure. Keep well, old Joyce…Fond and easy thought of you, be assured."

 

Salinger describes himself as a "non-abstract type," and this characterization is consistent with his spare and frank writing style. Like his most famous protagonist, the snarky teenager Holden Caulfield, Salinger prefers the "non-abstract truth" to hyperbole, insincerity, and hypocrisy.

 

Salinger's comments about a "subway-tale finale" illustrate how he viewed even his personal life through the lens of a writer. He evaluated how real life situations and relationships could be transferred to the "setting and action" of a short story or novel. In this imaginary dramatic scene, the setting is New York City in the autumn, and he and Joyce, the main characters, bid an emotionally fraught farewell on a subway platform. Judging from their correspondence, Salinger and Joyce had a complex relationship; they both had deep feelings for each other but ultimately avoided too much "emotional involvement." Perhaps this sort of tension piqued Salinger's creativity, and he recognized that he could exploit it, and similar emotions, in his writing.

 

American writer J.D. Salinger reached cult status after the publication of his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, which captured the jaded zeitgeist of a postwar adolescent generation. Salinger profiled members of the zany Glass Family in a string of short stories and novels including Franny and Zooey (1961).

 

Salinger moved to Cornish, New Hampshire in 1953 and lived there until his death in 2010.

 

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