Salinger Page #3

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for a writer to be published

in terms of prestige

for the simple reason that

it was hard to

get published there.

J.D. Salinger's entrance

into 'New Yorker' was not easy.

The response to

Salinger's early stuff

was one word - no.

- No.

- No.

You can go to the

'New Yorker' archives

in the New York Public Library

and read rejection

after rejection.

"It would have worked out

better for us

"if Mr Salinger had not

strained so for cleverness."

"We think Mr Salinger

is a very talented young man

"and wish to God you could

"get him to write

simply and naturally."

"If Mr Salinger is around town,

perhaps he'd like to come in

"and talk to us about

'New Yorker' stories."

His reaction

was, "They want me to write

"an O. Henry type

of short story,

"but I have to find

my own voice, and this is it,

"and they'll catch up to me."

He wrote a letter

to Wolcott Gibbs, the editor,

where he took

the 'New Yorker' to task

for not really publishing

major, big short stories.

He said they were too tiny.

I mean,

this was a kid lecturing

the editors of the 'New Yorker'

on what they should publish.

He was published

in other magazines.

It wasn't good enough.

He was determined -

"The 'New Yorker'

was going to publish me."

And, by George, they did.

He had a story accepted

in 1941, towards the end,

called

'Slight Rebellion Off Madison',

about a kid named

Holden Caulfield.

December 7, 1941.

A date which

will live in infamy.

Before they could get it

into the magazine,

World War II broke out,

and suddenly

this wonderful story

about a young man

named Holden Caulfield

and this personal rebellion

he was going through

seemed trivial

and beside the point

and, you know, it just

didn't seem appropriate

to put in the magazine,

and so they put it on the shelf.

And Jerry

was infuriated at this.

That was

his whole thrust in life,

was to be published

by the 'New Yorker'.

"A man is in Cornish.

"Amateur, perhaps,

but sentimentally connected.

"The saddest - a tragic figure

without a background.

"Needing a future

as much as your past.

"Let me."

I wrote this note

to J.D. Salinger

which I thought that

only he could understand,

practically begging him

for an audience.

Do I go left here?

'Cause I don't go left.

There's been

countless fans now for decades

who have done this.

They leave notes for him, they

go up to his house unannounced,

they knock on his front door.

They're showing up to try

to find out from Salinger

some answer

to something in their lives.

1978, I remember driving

on this road alone

feeling very lonely,

next to the Connecticut River,

hoping that J.D. Salinger,

my hero,

would give me

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