The New Yorker just published a short essay by the great journalist Lillian Ross, a tribute to her long friendship with the reclusive J.D. Salinger.
Her brief sketch fills in more details about Salinger’s life than most profiles, giving a peek into Salinger’s hobbies and thoughts about unwritten books. Best of all, the portrait contains a tantalizing tidbit about an adaptation of his classic story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” that never happened.
Here’s an excerpt: “Salinger loved movies, and he was more fun than anyone to discuss them with. He enjoyed watching actors work, and he enjoyed knowing them. (He loved Anne Bancroft, hated Audrey Hepburn, and said that he had seen ‘Grand Illusion’ ten times.) Brigitte Bardot once wanted to buy the rights to ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish,’ and he said that it was uplifting news. ‘I mean it,’ he told me. ‘She’s a cute, talented, lost enfante, and I’m tempted to accommodate her, pour le sport.'”