Prompted by J.D. Salinger’s lawsuit against an unauthorized sequel, journalist and author Ron Rosenbaum revists the older, more interesting question: What has Salinger been doing since he published his last short story in 1965?
Over at Slate, the author trots out some old conspiracy theories, speculates about the mysterious lawsuit over “60 Years Later Coming Through the Rye,” and finally plugs a new novel published on for the Amazon Kindle called “J.D. The Plot to Steal J.D. Salinger’s Manuscripts.” The essay reminds us all that it’s not about the gossip, the mystery, or the lawsuit–it’s about the writing.
Here’s more from the story: “I’ve heard unofficial reports that he’s produced several novels whose manuscripts–like [Vladimir Nabokov’s] “Laura”–have been stashed in a bank’s safe-deposit vault. Or that there are manuscript pages stacked to the ceiling in his house but no certainty about their state of completion. Other reports make him seem so strange that it’s possible he could be typing out the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit over and over again.”