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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, we want to let you know that we

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Speaker 1: are doing our traditional Pacific Northwest Swing for our live

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Speaker 1: show next year, in fact, the end of January next year,

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Speaker 1: very early next year, and.

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Speaker 2: We're starting out in Seattle, Washington on January twenty fourth

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Speaker 2: at the Paramount Theater. It's huge, that's right, and then

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Speaker 2: on to Portland on January twenty fifth at Revolution Hall,

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Speaker 2: the place we always are. It's kind of our home

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Speaker 2: away from home in Portland. And then we're going to

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Speaker 2: wrap it all up at the thing that started the

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Speaker 2: Pacific Northwest Tour in the first place all those years back.

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Speaker 2: SF Sketch Fest will be at the Sydney Goldstein Theater

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Speaker 2: on Friday, January twenty sixth, right, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: That's right, And remember you can go to stuff youshould

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Speaker 1: Know dot com click on tours in order to get

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Speaker 1: to the correct ticket link or go to the venue

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Speaker 1: page only. Do not go to scalper sites.

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Speaker 2: That's right, and we'll see you guys in January.

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Speaker 3: Okay, welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.

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Speaker 2: Jerry's here too. We just want to be alone, which

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Speaker 2: makes this stuff. You should know. That's right. That was

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Speaker 2: Greta Garbo doing JD. Salinger.

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Speaker 1: Oh I've never heard that.

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Speaker 2: You never heard Greta Garbo say that I vanted to

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Speaker 2: be alone?

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Speaker 3: No?

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Speaker 1: I haven't. Oh yeah, another recluse, right.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that's why I said that she could really probably

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Speaker 2: identify with JD's Salinger.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what Sallenger? Have you read? If any?

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Speaker 2: I read for Esme with Love and Squalor as recently

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Speaker 2: as last night, and it's good.

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Speaker 1: Huh.

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Speaker 2: It was great. I actually feel like I really missed

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Speaker 2: out not reading Salinger twenty years ago or thirty years

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Speaker 2: ago something like that. I just didn't and I don't

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Speaker 2: know why. But yeah, he was really good.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I was an English major, so I read a

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Speaker 1: lot of his stuff. Catcher in the Rye was one

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Speaker 1: that I'm actually do because I would. I was doing

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Speaker 1: a thing where I was kind of rereading it every

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Speaker 1: ten years or so, because that's a book wherein your

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Speaker 1: perspective as a reader can really change how you view

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Speaker 1: the book. And I found that after I reread it

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Speaker 1: the second time, and I was like, hey, wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: I should reread this thing like every decade or so

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Speaker 1: so I'm definitely due. And then I read nine Stories.

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Speaker 1: I read almost all of the Glass Family stuff. I

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Speaker 1: read most of this stuff that was popular and widely

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Speaker 1: available and wasn't just like, you know, something in the

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Speaker 1: New Yorker that you know was never put in book

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Speaker 1: form or whatever. So I read a lot of stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it sounds like your relationship with Salinger kind

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Speaker 2: of mirrors my relationship with the early works of Adam Sandler.

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Speaker 2: Rewatch Heavy Gilmore probably every ten years to revisit it,

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Speaker 2: see how it's changed, because I've changed.

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Speaker 1: You know, that's really funny. But Adam Sandler isn't as

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Speaker 1: complicated and potentially troublesome and problematic as JD. Salinger was

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Speaker 1: as a person. And what we'll get to all that stuff.

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Speaker 2: That sounds like somebody who hasn't really looked into Adam

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Speaker 2: Sandler's early works. Okay, so yeah, I had no idea

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Speaker 2: about the problematicness of JD. Salinger. I just knew he

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Speaker 2: was a revered writer, a recluse, And now I realized

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Speaker 2: like he was a really great writer too, in the

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Speaker 2: most approachable way. But the thing that struck me about

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Speaker 2: reading about JD. Salinger, which is one of my favorite

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Speaker 2: things to do, like reading about a good movie or

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Speaker 2: reading about an author or something like that, so I

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Speaker 2: got to do that researching this episode. One of the

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Speaker 2: things that struck me is as approachable and almost like

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Speaker 2: folksy as his writing.

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Speaker 1: Is, uh huh, he is.

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Speaker 2: Beloved by like literati types as well. Yeah, Normally he

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Speaker 2: would be pooh pooed and look down upon, And I

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Speaker 2: think maybe he was during his career, his actual career,

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Speaker 2: by some of the more like literati types, but today

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Speaker 2: he's as revered as anybody, maybe even more so, because

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Speaker 2: I think there's also a bit of affection that people

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Speaker 2: hold for him and his writing in addition to, you know,

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Speaker 2: feeling reverent toward it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I also think the disappearing act added a

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Speaker 1: lot to his legend. I mean, I'm not the only

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Speaker 1: one that thinks set but it's impossible to say what

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Speaker 1: that would have looked like had he just kept publishing

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Speaker 1: stuff and stayed in the public eye. But when you disappear,

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Speaker 1: you're going to add a lot of mystique and interest,

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Speaker 1: I think, yeah, exactly. And by the way, if you

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Speaker 1: hear some distant construction noise today, there's nothing I can

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Speaker 1: do about that.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I hope that came through in the Crane episode.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it did so.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, if you've never heard of JD. Salinger, we should

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Speaker 2: probably give you a little background. He published The Catcher

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Speaker 2: in the Rye in nineteen fifty one. It dropped like

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Speaker 2: a neutron bomb on America and essentially created the current

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Speaker 2: popular image of a teenager, especially disaffected, disillusioned teenagers who

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Speaker 2: are starting to realize like the world is not what

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Speaker 2: they've been told it is their entire lives up to

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Speaker 2: that point.

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Speaker 1: Phony.

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Speaker 2: Perhaps he started that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, phony, He is that word a lot.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, phony, and it's hilarious. It's a hilarious word, especially

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Speaker 2: when you use it earnestly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, I like it.

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Speaker 2: But that was like the protagonist of Ketcher in the

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Speaker 2: Rye is probably his favorite word. Holden Callfield's favorite word

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Speaker 2: was phony. And that's pretty much all you need to know.

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Speaker 2: We can end the episode here, really.

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Speaker 1: Or we could go back to when he was born.

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Speaker 2: Sure.

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Speaker 1: Jerome David Salinger and Manhattan, New York in nineteen nineteen

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Speaker 1: on New Year's Day to Miriam Sallenger and Soul Sallenger.

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Speaker 1: He has a sister, named Or had a sister named Doris.

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Speaker 1: It was seven years older that he remained close to,

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Speaker 1: and he was Sonny to his parents and his sister.

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Speaker 1: His dad was Jewish and was he was an executive.

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Speaker 1: He worked for a meat and cheese importing business and

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Speaker 1: was not super close to his son. He didn't get

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Speaker 1: his writing. He was sort of that, you know, kind

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Speaker 1: of what you would think of the nineteen twenties and

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Speaker 1: thirties father who just wasn't much of a father, wasn't

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Speaker 1: around much, didn't put a lot, didn't invest a lot

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Speaker 1: of time and his children, while his mom, Miriam, was

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Speaker 1: the opposite. She was a very doting mother, Irish Catholic

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Speaker 1: woman who loved Sonny. Young j D. Thought he was

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Speaker 1: going to be a great writer. He would joke at

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Speaker 1: one point to his friend that she walked me to

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Speaker 1: school until I was twenty four years old. Dedicated Ketcher

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Speaker 1: to his mom. And there's this very sweet story that

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Speaker 1: day found he read a full biography. I think of

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Speaker 1: him for this episode, but when he was eighteen, he

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Speaker 1: was working at writing. He wrote from the time he

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Speaker 1: was very young, and his mom slipped a little message

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Speaker 1: under the door that said, I accept your story. Consider

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Speaker 1: it a masterpiece. Check for one thousand dollars in the

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Speaker 1: mail Curtis Publishing Company. Pretty neat, pretty great.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So he was raised I guess upper middle class,

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Speaker 2: and I mean, like that's a that's a pretty typical combination,

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Speaker 2: like a distant father and a doting mom. Yeah, that

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Speaker 2: produces a certain kind of kid, and it seemed to

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Speaker 2: have produced J. D. Salinger pretty pretty predictably. But the

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Speaker 2: fact that he grew up on Park Avenue in Manhattan

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Speaker 2: and went to camp with other Jewish kids every summer,

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Speaker 2: like he had like a very typical I guess childhood,

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Speaker 2: but that seemed to have converged with like a pretty

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Speaker 2: sensitive type. Like he was a sensitive person and that

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Speaker 2: allowed him to kind of see things for you know,

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Speaker 2: what they really were, and he also had a talent

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Speaker 2: for putting that into understandable language, and all of that

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Speaker 2: put together made him the amazing writer that he became.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, he was going by Jerry to his friends

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Speaker 1: and people that he knew personally, and enrolled initially at

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Speaker 1: a place called McBurnie Preparatory School, a private school on

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Speaker 1: the Upper West Side, And he was kind of a

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Speaker 1: kind of a wise acre little sardonic, little sarcastic. He

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Speaker 1: did not make great grades. They pulled him out after

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Speaker 1: his sophomore year and sent him to military school, Valley

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Speaker 1: Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania. And this was a direct

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Speaker 1: model for if you've read Ketcher and the Rye of

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Speaker 1: Holden Callfield's Pencey Prep School. It was a very kind

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Speaker 1: of autobiographical in some ways. Take you know, we'll also

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Speaker 1: talk about some ways where he diverged from Holden call

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Speaker 1: Field for sure, but he was a big he like,

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Speaker 1: he did great. That was one of the big differences

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Speaker 1: his Holden Callfield was not happy at Pency Prep. And

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Speaker 1: it seemed that jad Salinger really got a lot out

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Speaker 1: of Valley Forge and was very, very active.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he was. He joined the drama club. He found acting,

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Speaker 2: which apparently was something I think he discovered acting at

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Speaker 2: camp one year and was like, I love this. So

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Speaker 2: he did every play he possibly could. At Valley Forge.

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Speaker 2: He was the editor of the yearbook. I mean, like,

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Speaker 2: you know, disaffected, isolated types don't usually become editors of

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Speaker 2: the yearbook at their school. Yeah, for sure. It was

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Speaker 2: a real distinction between his experience in Holden Callfield's experience

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Speaker 2: When he got to college, though, it was a different story,

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Speaker 2: and probably because Valley Forge was very structured and rigid

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Speaker 2: and he knew what to expect and he thrived in that.

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Speaker 2: As we'll see, he also seemed to have drive fairly

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Speaker 2: well in the Army. In college, one of the first

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Speaker 2: things you realize is like nobody's keeping tabs on you,

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Speaker 2: Like you have to motivate yourself to get up into

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Speaker 2: a class, and that can be really difficult. It's difficult

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Speaker 2: for everybody at first typically, but it can be like

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Speaker 2: like a non starter for some people who are ironically

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Speaker 2: non starters.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember in college, I was eager and I

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Speaker 1: was all in. But you skip your first class and

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Speaker 1: then you're like, oh, wait a minute, you can do that,

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Speaker 1: and nobody nobody.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you hit out in your apartment the whole day

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Speaker 2: waiting to get in trouble, and nobody came.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes the teachers keep track. I remember in college some

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Speaker 1: of them kept a certain amount of absences were allowed

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Speaker 1: or whatever, but some didn't at all. The big classes

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Speaker 1: and the teachers like, hey, you don't have to be

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Speaker 1: here if you don't want to. It's like it's to

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Speaker 1: your detriment, and you will learn that.

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Speaker 2: You'd be like, why do you have to say our

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Speaker 2: last part? It was going so well.

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Speaker 1: He found that, like you said, at college, he went

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Speaker 1: to NYU, but there in Greenwich Village there were too

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Speaker 1: many other things going on at that time. He flunked out,

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Speaker 1: and his father was like, all right, you should get

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Speaker 1: into business, like you know, follow your old man into

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Speaker 1: the meat and cheese business. So he shipped him off

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Speaker 1: to Poland in nineteen thirty seven to study under the

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Speaker 1: bacon king of Poland, not the sausage king of Chicago.

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Speaker 1: And Salinger was like, this is gross. I'm not doing this.

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Speaker 1: He went to Vienna and lived with a Jewish family

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Speaker 1: and fell in love. He learned German and fell in

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Speaker 1: love with their daughter, and very sadly that family did

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Speaker 1: not make it through the war. He left in nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty eight, just before the Nazis came into power, and

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Speaker 1: that family did not survive, and he wrote a short

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Speaker 1: story a sort of fictionalized version of that many years later,

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Speaker 1: called A Girl I Knew.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he tried college again here going to a place

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Speaker 2: called Ursinius, Orsinius Ursinus. That's what I'm going with your

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Speaker 2: valley Fords in Pennsylvania and didn't work out again. Then

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Speaker 2: he when he came back home, he said, all right,

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Speaker 2: I'm just going to become a writer. And his mom

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Speaker 2: was like, all right, that's cool, and his dad was like, no,

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Speaker 2: you're going to get in the ham and cheese business,

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Speaker 2: like I said. And apparently they came up with a

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Speaker 2: compromise that he would take writing classes at NY you

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Speaker 2: were Columbia. I can't remember which one. I think Columbia

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Speaker 2: and he locked out by taking a class by given

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Speaker 2: by the editor Whitburnett. And Whitburnett had a knack along

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Speaker 2: with his wife, who also edited this magazine Story Magazine,

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Speaker 2: his wife Hallie or Hayley, they had discovered or would

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Speaker 2: go on to discover some pretty like a pretty amazing

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Speaker 2: stable of writers.

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Speaker 1: If you ask y, Yeah, for sure you should go

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Speaker 1: ahead get such a great setup, set yourself up.

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Speaker 2: Oh oh thanks. There was Williams Common Tennessee mm HM

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Speaker 2: Truman Capote who well known for his his rough and

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Speaker 2: tumble westerns, and Norman Mahler who wrote The Jeffersons.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, if you've got you've got Norman Maylor, Treatman Compodi Tennessee,

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Speaker 1: Williams and J. D. Salinger on your list of writers

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Speaker 1: you've discovered, you're doing pretty well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing, like they basically discovered the who's who

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Speaker 2: of twentieth century men writers.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so he at well, how'd you say it, personists?

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Speaker 2: Uh?

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Speaker 1: Or yeah, yeah, at ersiness. It was sort of like

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Speaker 1: other college He wasn't taking it super seriously until one day,

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Speaker 1: as the story goes, wit Burnett was reading aloud the

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Speaker 1: Faulkner short story that evening sun and he didn't apparently

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Speaker 1: didn't like read it very dramatically. He just sort of

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Speaker 1: read it straight, just read the words as they were,

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Speaker 1: and Sallenger something about that really to hold of him,

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Speaker 1: and he said, this is the way forward for me.

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Speaker 1: I want to write in a way that doesn't get

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Speaker 1: in the way of a reader want I want the

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Speaker 1: reader to discover the emotion and the meaning by reading

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Speaker 1: it in you know, maybe a podcaster one day. We'll

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Speaker 1: read Catcher in the Rye every ten years and take

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Speaker 1: a different meaning because I han't explicitly sort of said

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Speaker 1: what the meaning is, and like you were saying that

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Speaker 1: his writing was. It wasn't fancy. It was very sort

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Speaker 1: of plain and accessible, and that's I think why he

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Speaker 1: got through to so many people.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, The thing is is, I don't know if it's

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Speaker 4: his attention to detail or is I for detailers as

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Speaker 4: ability to describe things in detail without becoming bogged down

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Speaker 4: by them.

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Speaker 2: Who knows, But I just think that it's such an

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Speaker 2: amazing epiphany to realize that probably up to that point

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Speaker 2: he'd been trying to lead readers along around by the

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Speaker 2: nose feel this, like you should be feeling this right now.

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Speaker 2: Instead to realize like, no, you can write in a

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Speaker 2: way where you leave it up to the reader, Like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's probably one of the best epiphanies a writer can

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Speaker 2: possibly have. And I haven't run across that very often,

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Speaker 2: Like it's rare, I think to see there's a specific

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Speaker 2: epiphany that creates the writer that everybody comes to love.

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Speaker 2: That's not everybody has that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he stopped ending every chapter with get it.

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Speaker 2: What's funny is he didn't. He decided to just kind

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Speaker 2: of get out of the reader's way and let them

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Speaker 2: figure it out for themselves. But he was also the

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Speaker 2: king of italics to emphasize points like oh this word,

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Speaker 2: this is an important word. That's what italics says, and

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Speaker 2: he used italics like constantly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So he failed that class, but he re enrolled

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Speaker 1: in that same class, this time with a little more spunk,

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Speaker 1: I think, and gave Burnett some of his stories, and

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Speaker 1: Burnett immediately knew that he had a pretty sharp talent

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Speaker 1: on his hands and mentored young Salinger and published his

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Speaker 1: first work, called The Young Folks in the spring nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty edition of Story, in which he was paid twenty

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Speaker 1: five bucks, which is a little more than five hundred today,

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Speaker 1: not bad. And he just kept writing, just writing and

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Speaker 1: writing and writing. One thing has been made clear about J. D.

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Speaker 1: Salinger up to his death at ninety one years old

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Speaker 1: is that he loved to write and wrote and wrote

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Speaker 1: and wrote and wrote always. He didn't publish a lot,

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Speaker 1: and we'll get to all that, but doesn't mean he

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Speaker 1: wasn't writing. He was writing from the time he was

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Speaker 1: a teenager un till he died. He always wanted to

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Speaker 1: be published in the New Yorker. That was this big dream.

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Speaker 1: They turned him down seven times until they accepted Slight

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Speaker 1: Rebellion off Madison and forty one, which had the character

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Speaker 1: of Holden call Field, the first story that had Holden

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Speaker 1: and very disappointingly after Pearl Harbor, they shelved the story

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Speaker 1: for five years, and you know, it just wasn't a

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Speaker 1: time to publish a story like that.

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Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, no, for sure. They said, don't you know,

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Speaker 2: there's a war going on, and I say, we take

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Speaker 2: a break and come back and join JD. Salinger in

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Speaker 2: the war.

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Speaker 1: Let's do it.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So JD. Salinger when war broke out, When America

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Speaker 2: entered World War Two, he signed up, He enlisted. He

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Speaker 2: actually tried to go to Officers School and they were like, nah,

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Speaker 2: you're a little a little too fresh for us.

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Speaker 1: So we ended up think you nowadays you have to

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Speaker 1: have a college degree to get into OCS. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if it was the case back then.

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Speaker 2: It could have been, who knows, but he was. He

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Speaker 2: just went from you know, base to base, just doing

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Speaker 2: mundane stuff, probably not loving life too much, but I'm

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Speaker 2: sure he had a lot of free time to write

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Speaker 2: and wrote wrote. And then it wasn't until I think

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Speaker 2: nineteen forty four that he ended up on in Europe

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Speaker 2: and his movements and the participation of the events that

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Speaker 2: he took place in from June of nineteen forty four

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Speaker 2: through the winter of nineteen forty five. He was basically

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Speaker 2: at every major event in the European theater, everything from

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Speaker 2: landing on Utah Beach in Day Day to liberating the

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Speaker 2: camp at Dachau. Like he was literally there and participated

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Speaker 2: in all of that stuff. And the fact that he

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Speaker 2: survived is intense. Like he was in some of the

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Speaker 2: most intense fighting that the entire war saw over the

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Speaker 2: course of like you know, a year.

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Speaker 1: Basically, Yeah, that reminds me of how maybe Jerry can

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Speaker 1: bleep this The great line from Rushmore when Max first

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Speaker 1: meets Bill Murray's character and he says he was in Vietnam.

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Speaker 1: He goes, were you in the Yeah, I was a

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Speaker 1: good line. J. D. Salinger certainly was, like you said.

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Speaker 1: And interestingly he had when he stormed the beach at

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Speaker 1: Utah Beach on D Day, he had the beginnings of

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Speaker 1: Ketcher and the Rye in his knapsack. He was working

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Speaker 1: on that book already. He only wrote about the war

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Speaker 1: through the short story The Magic Foxhole, where he wrote

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Speaker 1: about D Day. He did not talk about it much.

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Speaker 1: It is clear that it informed the rest of his life, though,

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Speaker 1: And we'll talk about you know, those moments you know

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Speaker 1: as we go along through his life, but I think

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Speaker 1: two thirds of his regiment died within the first few weeks,

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Speaker 1: close to two thirds after D Day. So it was

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Speaker 1: pretty brutal stuff, you know, the bleakest battles you can imagine.

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Speaker 1: Being pinned down in the hurricane forest in Germany, thousands

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Speaker 1: of people were freezing to death. He survived that, and then,

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Speaker 1: like you said, at Dachau in nineteen forty five, apparently

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Speaker 1: on the same day that Hitler shot himself, they came

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Speaker 1: upon Dachau and he talked about never in your life

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Speaker 1: not being able to, you know, get the smell of

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Speaker 1: burning flesh out of his nose.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. He was also in the Battle of the Bulge

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Speaker 2: that finally turned the tide against the Germans in World

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Speaker 2: War Two, where seventy five thousand German soldiers died. Like

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Speaker 2: this was over the course of weeks, tens and tens

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Speaker 2: of thousands of people dying all around you all the time.

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Speaker 2: He was there for all that, and he eventually became

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Speaker 2: I guess, an officer at the very Yeah, he was

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Speaker 2: a counterintelligence officer. His specialty was interrogating people. He used

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Speaker 2: the German that he picked up when he with that

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Speaker 2: family in Vienna just before the Nazis came to power

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Speaker 2: to interrogate Nazis that he ended up capturing, you know,

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Speaker 2: less than a decade later. Quite a turn of events

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Speaker 2: if you think about it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and pretty heavy stuff. And for all of this,

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Speaker 1: on V Day they say stick around. We don't want

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Speaker 1: you to go home. We'd like you to stick around

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Speaker 1: for a denazification mission. So all of a sudden he

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Speaker 1: was pulled away from his twelfth Regiment and the friends

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Speaker 1: he had met there, and he got depressed, and you know,

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Speaker 1: he was clearly affected with PTSD. They call it battle

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Speaker 1: fatigue at the time, and he checked himself into a

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Speaker 1: hospital at Nuremberg for PTSD treatment and eventually, well you

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Speaker 1: read it for Esme with love and Squalor is a

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Speaker 1: story about a World War two vet recovering from PTSD

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Speaker 1: in Germany.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a wonderful story.

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Speaker 1: You know what.

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Speaker 2: I just realized his stories, or at least the one

391
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Speaker 2: I read, But from reading about other stories, they seem

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Speaker 2: to have kind of like an O Henry quality of

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Speaker 2: things surprisingly turning out for the best in the end.

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Speaker 2: Is that correct?

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Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Like he was optimistic, hopeful, like eventually he was hopeful.

397
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Speaker 2: It seems like in most of his stories, maybe not

398
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Speaker 2: a good day for banana fish, but some of the

399
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Speaker 2: other ones. All the most of the other ones, he

400
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Speaker 2: seemed to just be a sentimentalist. I guess where it

401
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Speaker 2: just didn't end too bleakly like it was bleak and

402
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Speaker 2: then in the end it got better at the very least.

403
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Speaker 2: That's how it seemed to me. For Esme with Lovin Squalor.

404
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Speaker 1: Well Catcher and the Rye. Well, we can talk about

405
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Speaker 1: the ending a little bit. We don't want to give

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Speaker 1: it away too much. I guess we are gonna give

407
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Speaker 1: it away a little bit.

408
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Speaker 2: Well where he ends up on a ranch living with

409
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Speaker 2: Trueman Cacody out west.

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Speaker 1: We'll give a spoiler warning when that comes up. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So he finally got to go home, but he wasn't

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Speaker 1: coming home. He was discharged, but he told us fly, Hey,

413
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Speaker 1: I'm going to stay in Germany. I fell in love

414
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Speaker 1: with a woman named Sylvia and we got married. But

415
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Speaker 1: they were not married long. It was only eight months,

416
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Speaker 1: and he did not write during that period. So he

417
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Speaker 1: eventually would go back to New York and started to

418
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Speaker 1: sort of throw himself into the you know, the nightclubs

419
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Speaker 1: of the nineteen forties New York and sort of sleeping

420
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Speaker 1: around with women in New York. But he was you know,

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Speaker 1: he was suffering from PTSD at this time for sure.

422
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Just one one little note on Sylvia, his first wife.

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Speaker 2: She was a Nazi party official who he arrested during

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Speaker 2: his denotification project and ended up marrying her, and he

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Speaker 2: referred to her as Saliva for the rest of his

426
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Speaker 2: life whenever he talk.

427
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Speaker 1: Yeah. They his son was like, because there were rumors

428
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Speaker 1: that he had written stories about that marriage, and his son,

429
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Speaker 1: Matt was like, that's a joke. Like that didn't even

430
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Speaker 1: register in his life hardly. He did not write about it.

431
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Speaker 2: So his his hitting the nightclubs and picking up the

432
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Speaker 2: dames is not doing it for him. It's not numbing things.

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Speaker 2: He's he realizes at some point that he needs a

434
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 2: different a different way forward. And I'm not sure where

435
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:20,080
Speaker 2: he picks it up, but he started with Zen Buddhism.

436
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 2: I don't know where he was exposed to that, maybe

437
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 2: just in Greenwich Village in general, I'm not sure, but

438
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 2: that was that was the first step on a path

439
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:34,200
Speaker 2: toward a lifelong search for enlightenment. And as we'll see,

440
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:37,680
Speaker 2: he came to view writing as ultimately his path toward

441
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 2: enlightenment and therapy. But he started out by trying to

442
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 2: figure it out using like Zen, Buddhism and later on

443
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:49,880
Speaker 2: hindu Vedic spirituality.

444
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And part of the sort of spiritual awakening included, Hey,

445
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 1: I need to get out of New York if I

446
00:24:57,600 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 1: want to write and I want to finish this book

447
00:24:59,840 --> 00:25:03,880
Speaker 1: I'm working on this novel. New York is too distracting,

448
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: is too loud. I need more peace and quiet. I

449
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:09,680
Speaker 1: need to be able to meditate. And so he left.

450
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:12,479
Speaker 1: He left New York City nineteen forty nine and went

451
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:16,680
Speaker 1: to Westport, Connecticut, and he finished A Catcher in the

452
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: Rye there, his obviously seminal work. And there was a

453
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:25,679
Speaker 1: biographer who said J. D. Salinger spent ten years writing

454
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:27,359
Speaker 1: The Catcher in the Rye and the rest of his

455
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 1: life regretting it. And that kind of puts the nail

456
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 1: on the head, because that was that book was such

457
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 1: a big deal and it put him in such a

458
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:43,119
Speaker 1: spotlight that A he didn't like that spotlight, and b

459
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 1: he hated the book in publishing industry and everybody in it.

460
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:50,440
Speaker 1: It seemed like almost.

461
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:54,399
Speaker 2: Yes, So just a little bit on the publishing of

462
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 2: Catcher in the Rye right, like it was just an

463
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 2: immediate hit from what I can tell, people had been

464
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:03,160
Speaker 2: sitting around waiting for it, it almost seems like. And

465
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 2: to date it sold something like sixty five million copies.

466
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:10,679
Speaker 2: Sixty five million copies chuck about a half a million

467
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:11,200
Speaker 2: every year.

468
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:14,119
Speaker 1: Still, So I got a couple of stats for you

469
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: if I may. Yeah, yeah, please, that's number eighteen all

470
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 1: time for novels. And I was kind of curious, do

471
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 1: you have any idea what the number one best selling

472
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:28,439
Speaker 1: novel of all time in novel, not book, novel, novel

473
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 1: so not the Bible, right right?

474
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 2: I would say how the West was won by Truman Capoti.

475
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 1: No don Quixote, really, which makes sense because it was

476
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 1: sort of one of the first great novels. Okay, five

477
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 1: hundred million copies, which is more than double the next.

478
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: The Tale of Two Cities is next at two hundred million,

479
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 1: then Lord of the Rings, the Little Prince and the Hobbit,

480
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:02,640
Speaker 1: and then Harry Potter dude owns numbers eleven through sixteen. Wow,

481
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: isn't that crazy?

482
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:08,919
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, that's imagine being a living, a living

483
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,199
Speaker 2: writer who's just written those things in the last like

484
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 2: twenty or so years, and you own that many on

485
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:16,680
Speaker 2: the top list. That's nuts.

486
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:20,879
Speaker 1: Well, imagine being Dan Brown then, because he's the modern

487
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: writer at number ten, the Da Vinci Code is the

488
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:24,200
Speaker 1: number ten best selling hub.

489
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 2: I believe that. Man, everybody was talking about that.

490
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: Eighty million books. But yeah, number eighteen sixty five million

491
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: books and still selling strong is pretty great. Yeah, so

492
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:33,400
Speaker 1: please continue.

493
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 2: And he was able to live off of royalties for

494
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 2: the rest of his life. It was like, that's it.

495
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:40,400
Speaker 2: I just struck. I'm fine for the rest of my life.

496
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how long it took for that to

497
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:47,159
Speaker 2: become clear. Maybe nineteen sixty five, I don't know, but

498
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:50,119
Speaker 2: he did. He never needed to work again from that

499
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 2: point on, essentially, so when he wrote it, So there

500
00:27:55,680 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 2: was a biographer that likened it to a war novel

501
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 2: disguised as a coming of age story. Yeah, And what

502
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 2: they were saying was that, like, at least if you're

503
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 2: looking at it through the lens of J. D. Salinger,

504
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 2: the writer himself writing it like this was his spiritual Catharsis.

505
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 2: This was him finding a way to put World War

506
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 2: two behind him as best he could enough at least

507
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 2: to get on with his life, right. And like you said,

508
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 2: what he experienced in World War two informed the rest

509
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 2: of his life or colored the rest of his life

510
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 2: for the rest of his life. But this was like

511
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 2: this got out the darkest, gunkiest, worst stuff. It seems

512
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 2: like getting Catcher in the Rye out there.

513
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. And you know what, let's not

514
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: spoil the ending except to say that it does end

515
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: with some hope it does, because I don't think we

516
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: should even even say like people should read it. It's

517
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 1: just one of those books I think that like people

518
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: should read. I'm about to do that with Moby Dick.

519
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 1: I've never read it. And my buddy, our our friend

520
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: Joey Ciara, who did with his brother Andy, did the

521
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: theme song to this stuff you should know show. He

522
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: collects Moby Dick's and he's like obsessed with a book

523
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 1: and he's like, dude, just read it, just trust me

524
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: and read it. And I was like, all right, I'll

525
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 1: read it, okay. But Catcher in the Rise another one

526
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 1: I think where you know, just give it a read.

527
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 1: It's a great book, and it's just one that's I

528
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: hate to say, like it's an important work, but it

529
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: is sure.

530
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:32,480
Speaker 2: We won't give away the end, just suffice to say

531
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 2: that he finds the kidney downer he needs.

532
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 1: That's right. So he has doesn't have a good experience

533
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: with the publishing process. Like I said, he hated it.

534
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 1: He fought with the editors. He didn't like the cover

535
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: of the book. The original cover was that kind of

536
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: kind of weird looking drawing of a carousel horse with

537
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 1: a little small bit of the New York City skyline

538
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: in the lower left. He didn't like his photo on

539
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 1: the back. He eventually, I believed, was able to get

540
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:12,240
Speaker 1: that removed in the third printing. You can get a

541
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 1: lot of money if you got that first edition Catcher,

542
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 1: then you're holding on to something pretty valuable.

543
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 2: Can you imagine, Chuck, how much those pages of Ketcher

544
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:21,480
Speaker 2: and the Rye that were in his knapsack when he

545
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 2: stormed Normandy would be worth if surely they're still out

546
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 2: there somewhere. I cannot imagine how much some tech billionaire

547
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 2: would pay.

548
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 1: For those Yeah, no, no, totally. And then like, and

549
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: I'll use it as a rolling paper.

550
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 2: That's funny.

551
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 1: Nine stories came next. That's a great one too. Most

552
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: of those were written before Ketcher was actually published, but

553
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 1: that was also a bestseller.

554
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 2: Those are short stories, right, a collection?

555
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, nine of them. Strangely, it could also refer to.

556
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:55,720
Speaker 2: A specific building or something like that.

557
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: No, no, no, it could. I was joking because Ween, we've

558
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 1: talked about this. Ween's or ten Golden Country Greats didn't

559
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 1: have ten songs so awesome? It was because it was

560
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: the guys they played with. There were ten of them?

561
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 1: Or was it twelve? Why can't I remember?

562
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 2: I don't remember. I don't know, all right, it's not

563
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 2: even a question in my memory, failing me. I didn't

564
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 2: have the four knowledge to lose to begin with.

565
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's twelve Golden Country Greats, but there's not

566
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 1: twelve songs. And people thought that was Ween making a joke.

567
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 1: But they were like, no, the's twelve Golden Country Greats

568
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:26,719
Speaker 1: with these old timers from Nashville who played with us.

569
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 2: So wait, one more thing. Well, then that's not a joke.

570
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 2: That's just a misunderstanding.

571
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 1: Exactly so.

572
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 2: About the actual title though, of Ween of the Catcher

573
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 2: in the Rye, we should tell people about that, because

574
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 2: I didn't know until yesterday.

575
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,239
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, this is also a spoiler. So if

576
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 1: you don't want to know, then don't listen to this part.

577
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 1: Go ahead. Is it a spoiler, sure, because it's in

578
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: the book.

579
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 2: Oh it is, okay, forget it, forget it. Just read

580
00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 2: the book everybody.

581
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 1: No, no, you should say it because I think people that

582
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: are like I don't want to bother please tell me.

583
00:31:57,320 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, well, then the people who don't want to bother.

584
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 2: The Catcher in the Rye is taken from a Robert

585
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 2: Burns poem where he talks about when a body meets

586
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 2: a body coming through the rye, when a little body

587
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:11,479
Speaker 2: catch a body, will somebody die? I think that's how

588
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 2: it ends, at the very least that's how David Niven

589
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 2: sings it in Murdered by Death. But what he's referring

590
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 2: to is the catcher in the Rye is him. He's

591
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 2: catching little kids from going off a cliff, little kids

592
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 2: playing in a field of rye, and as they're at

593
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 2: their most free and reckless in their abandonment, they are

594
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 2: in danger of going off this cliff, which would be

595
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 2: becoming adults, losing their childhood. And he sees himself as

596
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 2: the catcher, the person catching them from going off that

597
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 2: cliff so that they can remain children or innocent essentially forever.

598
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:54,479
Speaker 2: Nice summation, Thank you, thank you, cliff Notes.

599
00:32:56,480 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 1: Oh we should do one on cliffs Notes. I always

600
00:32:58,000 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 1: wonder who Cliff was.

601
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 2: Great, great idea.

602
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 1: So maybe we'll take a break here in a minute,

603
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 1: but we'll just finish by saying that over the next

604
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 1: decade after Catcher, he's publishing other things. But that is

605
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 1: when things got started to get a little weird for him,

606
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: in that he was a sensation, and there were reporters

607
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: knocking on his door, and he was just receiving tons

608
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: and tons of mail from kids who thought he was

609
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: this guru and like this sage delivering wisdom to a

610
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,479
Speaker 1: younger generation. And all these other younger writers were inspired

611
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: to take up writing, and it was just a little

612
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 1: too much for someone who was seeking solitude and spiritual enlightenment.

613
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:43,959
Speaker 1: So we will take a break and let you know

614
00:33:44,160 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 1: what happened right after this, all right, So when we

615
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:13,240
Speaker 1: left J. D. Salinger was a literary sensation. The walls

616
00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:15,320
Speaker 1: were closing in on him as far as his privacy

617
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:20,320
Speaker 1: and his sort of search for spirituality anonymity. Well, I

618
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: don't think he wanted to be anonymous, necessarily because he

619
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 1: published work, but he definitely wanted privacy. If you want

620
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: to be anonymous, he would have published it under a

621
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 1: pen name. I would imagine Truman Capodi. In fifty three, though,

622
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: he bought a ninety acre property in Cornish, New Hampshire.

623
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 1: It's about four hours from Manhattan, a very lovely, quiet

624
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: farming community back then it probably still is. And he left.

625
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:46,879
Speaker 1: But Dave is keen to point out, and as our

626
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: biographers of Salalinger, this wasn't him saying I'm removing myself

627
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 1: from the world. I'm going to be a recluse. He

628
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: just wanted to get out of the hustle and bustle

629
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 1: and lived the quiet life. He had friends there. He

630
00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 1: went into town and got his mail, he went and

631
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 1: ate the local lunch place called Harrington Spa. He had friends,

632
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: He had adult friends. He also had teenage friends, which

633
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: you know, we'll get into you know, the problematic nature

634
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: of that later, But there was a group of teenagers

635
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: from the high school there. He was in his early thirties,

636
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: and he had connected with young people in his life

637
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 1: and kind of that's why he could write in that voice.

638
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:25,440
Speaker 1: So easily, I think, and he just you know, they

639
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 1: thought he was one of the gang, and they loved

640
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:29,359
Speaker 1: his advice, and so they would kind of all hang

641
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: out here and there. And so it's not like he

642
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: disappeared completely at that point.

643
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 2: No, he didn't need to. He just was getting away

644
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 2: from the people who really wanted something from him, and

645
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:42,359
Speaker 2: instead he introduced himself to a place where he could

646
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:45,400
Speaker 2: just be Jerry basically. And it's not like the people

647
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 2: there didn't know who he was. They just weren't necessarily

648
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:52,879
Speaker 2: as starstruck or seeking him as a guru like other

649
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 2: people were, and people would still come visit him from

650
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 2: time to time. He was known to sometimes just be like, look,

651
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 2: I'm not a guru. I don't know anything that you

652
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 2: don't know. I just wrote a book. I can't give

653
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 2: you anything. To answering the door with a shotgun, you know,

654
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:10,200
Speaker 2: and being like, get off my property. It depended, i'm sure,

655
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 2: in his mood. But he had fashioned a life for

656
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 2: himself and he wasn't the recluse that he's famous for now.

657
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:20,719
Speaker 2: Like you were saying, there, there was actually one specific

658
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 2: incident that triggered that reclusiveness that hadn't been there before

659
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 2: and he stayed in Cornish. She didn't move from Cornish.

660
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 2: But if a person can withdraw from the world more

661
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,320
Speaker 2: than he had by moving to Cornish, he did it masterfully.

662
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,560
Speaker 2: And it all is to blame on a girl named

663
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 2: Shirley Blainey.

664
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. So she was a teenager who worked for the

665
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 1: school newspaper or wrote for the school newspaper and said,

666
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: kind of interview you for the school newspaper. And he

667
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: did not do press at all, but he was like, sure,

668
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:54,279
Speaker 1: I'll do this thing for the local school paper. And

669
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:59,280
Speaker 1: because he you know, he believed in that kind of thing. Instead,

670
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:02,440
Speaker 1: it was published in the regional newspaper, the Daily Eagle,

671
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 1: Twins State Telescope, and that was it for him. He

672
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:09,280
Speaker 1: was like, I can't even trust this kid to interview

673
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 1: me for a school paper. Everybody wants something from me.

674
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 1: It's unforgivable. It was a betrayal and so that was it.

675
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:20,200
Speaker 1: He built a fence around his property. He quit going

676
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 1: into town, he quit throwing and going to parties. When

677
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 1: those his little teenager buddies would come around to hang out,

678
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:30,399
Speaker 1: he wouldn't come to the door anymore. And that's when

679
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:35,319
Speaker 1: his life as the recluse started, even though his son

680
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 1: Matt will say, you know, all this is written about

681
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 1: his reclusiveness and he just didn't want to be around.

682
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what a recluse is. But he said

683
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 1: they made it out to be like he was just

684
00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:50,800
Speaker 1: this crazy hermit, and he was like, he just didn't

685
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:52,959
Speaker 1: want to be bothered and he just wanted to write

686
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: without all the noise. Yeah, was his son's take.

687
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:59,359
Speaker 2: But his social life seems to have been definitely objectively

688
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:02,480
Speaker 2: curtail after that, Like he was much more social up

689
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:03,280
Speaker 2: until that point.

690
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 1: Oh, no, one doubts that.

691
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:08,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, his famous quote was surely Blainey a real phony.

692
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:10,280
Speaker 1: Was it really?

693
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 2: No, it wouldn't surprise me, it'd be great. So he

694
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 2: becomes that kind of recluse, and to some people that

695
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 2: was like, oh, we gotta really find him now. There

696
00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 2: was a nineteen sixty one Life article on him where

697
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:29,439
Speaker 2: they the I guess the author came to his house

698
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 2: and took pictures of his mailbox, got a picture of

699
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 2: him working in his yard, like really intrusive stuff. People

700
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 2: felt like, okay with doing that just because he was

701
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:41,879
Speaker 2: a recluse, you know what I mean. Yeah, and that's

702
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 2: a really difficult thing to deal with for him, but

703
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:49,960
Speaker 2: he still sought connection with certain people. I think it

704
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:52,480
Speaker 2: was just you had to you had to earn his

705
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:55,800
Speaker 2: trust or he had to find you attractive.

706
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a pretty small circle. He got together

707
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 1: with a young woman named Claire Douglas. They had met

708
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 1: when she was sixteen and he was thirty two, and

709
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:09,960
Speaker 1: they kept in touch via letters and things, and they

710
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 1: started dating when she was nineteen at Radcliffe student at Radcliffe.

711
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: They bonded over religion. You mentioned early Vedanta and Hinduism.

712
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 1: That is what they really got into at that point,

713
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:27,200
Speaker 1: and he really immersed himself into sort of that sort

714
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 1: of religious study in philosophy, and the basic tenets of

715
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: which are that God is in everything, God is everywhere,

716
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:38,439
Speaker 1: God is you, God is me. That kind of thing

717
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:40,680
Speaker 1: very George Harrison, I think.

718
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:46,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, but like at least a decade before George Harrison

719
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 2: was ever exposed to this stuff, Like this guy was

720
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 2: doing this.

721
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:52,279
Speaker 1: In like the mid the sixties. Oh okay, I thought

722
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:53,520
Speaker 1: it was no sixties.

723
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:57,319
Speaker 2: He and Claire got married in nineteen fifty five, so

724
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:00,840
Speaker 2: like he was into it in the early midfifth at

725
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 2: the latest. So yeah, yeah, he was definitely into that,

726
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:08,799
Speaker 2: and his son I think no. No. His daughter, who

727
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 2: will meet in a second, later said that she believes

728
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 2: that he got in over his head. Essentially, he took

729
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:17,399
Speaker 2: it all to too much to heart, and he turned

730
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 2: his back on the world and became a quote strange

731
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:24,560
Speaker 2: man because of the degree to which he exposed himself

732
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 2: to religion. I get the impression. Doesn't matter what the

733
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 2: religion was, it was the degree.

734
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:33,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean his kids have two different takes. His daughter,

735
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 1: Margaret would write a book that was not very flattering,

736
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:41,240
Speaker 1: said that, you know, he basically held my mom hostage there.

737
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: He did disturbing things. He drank urine, he spoke in tongues.

738
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 1: He became a very strange man that she didn't recognize.

739
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: And this is she had grown up really loving her father.

740
00:40:55,000 --> 00:41:00,800
Speaker 1: Whereas Matt Sallenger who played Captain America No the nineteen

741
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 1: ninety film Captain America and was in Revenge of the Nerds.

742
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:06,920
Speaker 2: Which who was he in Revenge of the Nerds.

743
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:10,680
Speaker 1: He was one of the guys in the in the frat,

744
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 1: the hot frat, Yeah, with not the nerds. Hell yeah.

745
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:21,080
Speaker 1: Married what was his last name? Oh, I don't remember.

746
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 1: He's great though I love that guy, wonderful. But yeah,

747
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:25,600
Speaker 1: Matt s Allener was an actor and producer for a while.

748
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 1: But he he says that his sisters. There's a great

749
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 1: article from The Guardian from a few years ago, twenty nineteen.

750
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: I think with Matt where he said his sister Margaret,

751
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:38,879
Speaker 1: he loves her and respects her. But he says those

752
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:41,440
Speaker 1: accounts are gothic tales. So it's kind of one of

753
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: those things where two kids have two different takes on

754
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 1: their famous slash weird parent.

755
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:51,240
Speaker 2: Right, But I mean like those are pretty at odds

756
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 2: with one another, pretty diametrical, you know.

757
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:55,840
Speaker 1: I agree. I don't think Matt said he was some

758
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 1: great dad either, because he would He built a bunker

759
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 1: basically to write it in a writing studio, and was

760
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:05,600
Speaker 1: not a doting father, and you know, writing was his

761
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 1: most important thing. He used to say, do not disturb

762
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:10,400
Speaker 1: me unless this, unless the house is burning down, like

763
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:13,319
Speaker 1: leave me alone, family, so I can do my important work.

764
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 2: So two things, One, it's Teed McGinley. Two, the image

765
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:26,719
Speaker 2: of JD. Salinger that people popularly hold is still very

766
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:30,760
Speaker 2: much widespread, the one that they've they've held forever, essentially

767
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 2: since he became a recluse, but like a brilliant writer

768
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:38,399
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah. The I guess a different kind

769
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 2: of piggy esque view that his daughter has of him

770
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:47,840
Speaker 2: started to emerge in the nineties. Peggy wrote a book

771
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 2: called Dream Catcher, which you mentioned. I think it came

772
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:51,480
Speaker 2: out in two thousand.

773
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 1: Who's Peggy?

774
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:55,000
Speaker 2: Peggy is his daughter Margaret?

775
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:56,360
Speaker 1: Oh oh, that was her nickname.

776
00:42:56,480 --> 00:43:00,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in the book she talks she talked at

777
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 2: length about how her mother was treated and her mother

778
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:11,319
Speaker 2: was that Ragcliffe co ed Claire, right, is it Claire Douglas, Yes,

779
00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:16,640
Speaker 2: Claire Douglas And apparently J. D. Salinger drove Claire Douglas

780
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 2: like to the brink of insanity. They got divorced in

781
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:24,680
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven, and according to her side of the story,

782
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:29,920
Speaker 2: he was extremely emotionally abusive to her. He would tell

783
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:33,359
Speaker 2: her that he didn't love her. He made her like

784
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:36,480
Speaker 2: live in this like it wasn't necessarily her choice to

785
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 2: live without heat or hot water and grow their own

786
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:44,440
Speaker 2: food and be quiet because we're thinking about, you know, enlightenment.

787
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:48,280
Speaker 2: Like she went along with it because she was nineteen

788
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 2: and he was in his early mid thirties. So the

789
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 2: stuff that has come out about him, starting in about

790
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 2: the late nineties and then continuing on as different women

791
00:43:59,600 --> 00:44:01,759
Speaker 2: in his life life over time have kind of come

792
00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:04,799
Speaker 2: forward and been like yes, and there's also this, there's no,

793
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:08,960
Speaker 2: there's not like a smoking gun, right, it's not like

794
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 2: anything like on a Harvey Weinstein level. But his image

795
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 2: has definitely turned a little bit because it has become

796
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 2: clear that he used his age and experiences as an

797
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 2: older person to control and manipulate younger girls to his

798
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:31,800
Speaker 2: to often their detriment, for his short term pleasure.

799
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:38,120
Speaker 1: Essentially, yeah, absolutely, it seem like the move was, like,

800
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:42,759
Speaker 1: I mean, it's called grooming, is what the word we

801
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 1: use today. But find someone in their mid teens and

802
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:49,799
Speaker 1: begin a friendship with them and write letters and pay

803
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 1: them a lot of attention and stuff like that, and

804
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:55,279
Speaker 1: then get together, try and get together with them at

805
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 1: least or get together with them in a physical way

806
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:01,440
Speaker 1: when when they're legally able to do so. So that

807
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:04,319
Speaker 1: happened a few different times. There was a fourteen year

808
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:07,400
Speaker 1: old named Jane Miller. He was thirty at the time.

809
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 1: He pursued her via friendship in letters and then which

810
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:16,759
Speaker 1: she was nineteen, they had sexual intercourse, and he dumped

811
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 1: her immediately afterward. She came out and wrote about it

812
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:22,400
Speaker 1: after he died. She said that she didn't want to

813
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:25,359
Speaker 1: write about it while he was still alive. And then

814
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:29,400
Speaker 1: he eventually started dating a freshman at Yale named Joyce

815
00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: Maynard in nineteen ninety eight. She wrote a lot about

816
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:36,879
Speaker 1: their relationship. I think they were together about a year.

817
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:39,960
Speaker 1: Said he was very manipulative and that he would take

818
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 1: advantage of naive young women, and then I believe he

819
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:48,120
Speaker 1: finally married remarried again in ninety two. He was to

820
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:52,560
Speaker 1: a woman named Colleen O'Neil. She's like my age basically

821
00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:54,480
Speaker 1: at the time, she was twenty one years old and

822
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 1: he was sixty nine years old. And they stayed married

823
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: for what eighteen eighteen years until he died.

824
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she was a nurse and apparently was also

825
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:07,799
Speaker 2: a bit of a nurse to him as well as

826
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 2: a wife from what I can tell. Like a good

827
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 2: example I saw was that he had gone very much

828
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:15,879
Speaker 2: death essentially very hard of hearing, but he was too

829
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:18,360
Speaker 2: vain to wear a hearing aid, so she would have

830
00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 2: to repeat to him in a louder voice with somebody

831
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 2: you know had just said to him when they were

832
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 2: out and about in town or whatever. Right, so, you know,

833
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:30,080
Speaker 2: twenty one year old, sixty nine year old type stuff.

834
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:36,839
Speaker 2: But she apparently is I guess, the least affected of

835
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 2: all of his wives or girlfriends. She co is co

836
00:46:42,239 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 2: trustee of his work with his son Matt. She's still

837
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:50,280
Speaker 2: very much in the JD. Salinger pro Sallenger camp, clearly,

838
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:54,359
Speaker 2: but I guess kind of the antithesis to her would

839
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 2: be Joyce Maynard, who was the freshman at Yale, and

840
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 2: she has written about their relation ship so much that

841
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:08,240
Speaker 2: people have come to look at her as an opportunist,

842
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:10,840
Speaker 2: somebody who's basically just trading on the one year she

843
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:13,719
Speaker 2: spent with J. D. Salinger. She's been trying to make

844
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:16,040
Speaker 2: money off of that or get fame or publicity off

845
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 2: of it for years. Another interpretation that's kind of come

846
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:21,839
Speaker 2: around lately is that she's been telling the story of

847
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 2: a victim who was manipulated by an older man, and

848
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 2: when you dig into her story, she was like suddenly

849
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 2: the hot New York literati it girl all of a sudden.

850
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:36,880
Speaker 2: When when they met, she had just been on the

851
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 2: cover of New York magazine, on the cover with a

852
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:42,400
Speaker 2: cover story, but they also put her picture on the cover,

853
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 2: and he got in touch with her and said like, hey,

854
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:47,359
Speaker 2: I think you're writing's great, and they started to write

855
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 2: letters back and forth. He convinced her to drop out

856
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:52,960
Speaker 2: of Yale with just a few months before graduating, to

857
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:55,399
Speaker 2: give up her her job working as a New York

858
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:58,200
Speaker 2: Times writer, which she'd just gotten, and to blow off

859
00:47:58,239 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 2: a book tour that was going to start her career

860
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:03,759
Speaker 2: and instead moved to Cornish, New Hampshire with him.

861
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:04,399
Speaker 1: And she did.

862
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:07,640
Speaker 2: She was nineteen at the time, very much like Claire

863
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:11,360
Speaker 2: Douglas and at the very least, even if he wasn't

864
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 2: overtly manipulating her like her life went off the rails

865
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 2: because she got involved with this incredibly revered older man

866
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:24,040
Speaker 2: who she thought loved her, and after a year he

867
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 2: was done with her and she moved out. Apparently it

868
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:30,839
Speaker 2: was over kids or something. Ostensibly she wanted kids, he didn't,

869
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:32,319
Speaker 2: and they were like, no, this isn't going to work.

870
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 2: But yeah, Joyce Mayard has gone through a bit of

871
00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:40,040
Speaker 2: a reform over the last several years, at least as

872
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 2: far as some people are concerned.

873
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:47,280
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And you mentioned tech bros buying things Maynard,

874
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:51,600
Speaker 1: she sold fourteen. She auctioned fourteen personal letters from Salinger,

875
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:55,839
Speaker 1: and Peter Norton of Norton Antivirus bought them for two

876
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. He offered to give them back to JD.

877
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:03,720
Speaker 1: Soudlenger or to burn them, and I think wasn't even answered,

878
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 1: so he just locked them up, and I think still

879
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:06,879
Speaker 1: has possession of them.

880
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:09,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, and supposedly that was a dime a dozen kind

881
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 2: of thing other women came for and was like, I

882
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 2: had treasured letters that he wrote to me too. It

883
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:19,440
Speaker 2: was Yeah, So he's become a study in one of

884
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 2: those things where it's like, Okay, this guy was a

885
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 2: little more complicated and like you said, at the outset

886
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:28,560
Speaker 2: problematic than anyone knew or realized, and yet his work

887
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 2: is still just as amazing as it was before. You

888
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 2: know what I mean.

889
00:49:34,719 --> 00:49:39,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he quit publishing completely and like I said,

890
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 1: kept writing. In a one later interview, he did not

891
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:45,600
Speaker 1: do many but he said, there's a marvelous piece in

892
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:50,000
Speaker 1: not publishing. It's peaceful. Still, publishing is a terrible invasion

893
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:52,479
Speaker 1: of my privacy. I like to write, I love to write,

894
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:55,360
Speaker 1: but I write just for myself. And my own pleasure.

895
00:49:56,160 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 1: I pay for this kind of attitude. I'm known as strange,

896
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 1: as a strange loof kind of man. But all I'm

897
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:04,200
Speaker 1: doing is trying to protect myself and my work. And

898
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:07,480
Speaker 1: that article with Matt Salinger, like there is a lot

899
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:11,440
Speaker 1: of work that he did, and he, Matt Sallenger, is

900
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:13,360
Speaker 1: going to publish some of it. Apparently he was directed

901
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 1: to publish some of it. I read an article years

902
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: ago right after he died where they said between twenty

903
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: ten and twenty fifteen, there will be five new novels.

904
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:25,000
Speaker 1: And you know, none of that has happened yet, nothing

905
00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:27,839
Speaker 1: has come out, and Matt Salinger is just like you

906
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 1: know it. It's gonna take as long as it's gonna take.

907
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:34,479
Speaker 1: Like there's tons of stuff, and I respect my father's work,

908
00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:38,759
Speaker 1: and it's we're never gonna license stuff. You're never gonna

909
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:40,960
Speaker 1: see it catching the right coffee mug. It's not going

910
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 1: to be a movie. But like, I want to publish

911
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 1: this stuff correctly, and that takes a lot a lot

912
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 1: of time, and like back.

913
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 2: Off, Yeah, so what else you got anything else?

914
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 1: I got nothing else? I mean, new new stuff's going

915
00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: to come out at some point. Curious to see what

916
00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:03,279
Speaker 1: that looks like. I bet some will be about the

917
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:05,840
Speaker 1: Glass Family. I think for sure that was the family

918
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:09,960
Speaker 1: and many of those short stories that he wrote about

919
00:51:10,040 --> 00:51:13,719
Speaker 1: recurring characters Franny and Zooey and stuff like that. So

920
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:16,239
Speaker 1: I imagine there's more Glass Family stuff in there. I

921
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:17,200
Speaker 1: think that's been confirmed.

922
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:20,280
Speaker 2: Dave turned up a really great analysis of JD. Salinger's

923
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:27,000
Speaker 2: writing by a guy named Michichi Michiko Kakutani. It's really

924
00:51:27,040 --> 00:51:30,840
Speaker 2: insightful and also just as approachable as JD. Salinger's writing is.

925
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:33,239
Speaker 2: It's really really good stuff. So I thought it was

926
00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:36,400
Speaker 2: a pretty good introduction to JD. Salinger and the whole

927
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:39,880
Speaker 2: It takes a look at like the whole his whole career,

928
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:44,279
Speaker 2: from you know, how lauded it was to how it

929
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:46,240
Speaker 2: kind of at the end some of the last stuff

930
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 2: he published, people were like, what's going on here? Like

931
00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:51,200
Speaker 2: this is a little odd, you know what I mean?

932
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 1: Yeah to me that I like to check that.

933
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 2: I will send it to you. Since Chuck asked me

934
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:58,319
Speaker 2: to send something and we're out of stuff to talk

935
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:00,560
Speaker 2: about J D. Salinger, I think think that means it's

936
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:01,760
Speaker 2: time for a listener, mayl.

937
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:08,479
Speaker 1: I'm going to call this Red Stripe confirmation for joshus. Hey, guys,

938
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:10,520
Speaker 1: you mentioned red Stripe beer on the recent episode about

939
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:13,400
Speaker 1: scuba and reminded me of a story worked at a

940
00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:17,719
Speaker 1: country club in Granger, Indiana as a banquet ship. I

941
00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:19,960
Speaker 1: think it said shift, I know it's not scheft. By

942
00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:23,480
Speaker 1: the way, We did a Caribbean Island themed event for

943
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:26,040
Speaker 1: the members and the bar manager, and the bar manager

944
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 1: ordered a couple of cases of Red Stripe, told the

945
00:52:28,239 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: bartenders to push it so it would sell through. The

946
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:33,840
Speaker 1: first guy to a bottle tasted it and said it

947
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:36,360
Speaker 1: was terrible instead of the bar and told everyone not

948
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:39,040
Speaker 1: to get it. We only sold two bottles. A few

949
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:42,920
Speaker 1: months later, we did an invitational event just after it

950
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:45,719
Speaker 1: was in the movie The Firm, where two guys were

951
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:48,840
Speaker 1: drinking it before they went scuba diving as part of

952
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:52,319
Speaker 1: an escape plan. As Josh mentioned, the bartenders were asked

953
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 1: again to push the Red Stripe and I was putting

954
00:52:54,640 --> 00:52:56,719
Speaker 1: out appetizers and one of the first guys to come

955
00:52:56,760 --> 00:52:59,160
Speaker 1: off the golf course said, Hey, that's that beer they

956
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:01,920
Speaker 1: were drinking in that and he said it was pretty

957
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:05,160
Speaker 1: good and was telling his buddies about the movie and

958
00:53:05,239 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: Red stripe and it sold out in an hour, same

959
00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 1: group of people. That recognition from the movie really helped

960
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:15,040
Speaker 1: sell the beer. So Josh was right, ever underestimate the

961
00:53:15,120 --> 00:53:17,760
Speaker 1: power of marketing. And that is from Steve.

962
00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:20,880
Speaker 2: Thanks Steve. I love it when I'm right. I especially

963
00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:22,640
Speaker 2: love him when people write in to tell me I

964
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 2: was right.

965
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 1: You know good stuff.

966
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:27,239
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Steve and tell me

967
00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:30,399
Speaker 2: that I was right, bring it on. You can send

968
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:37,240
Speaker 2: it via email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

969
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:40,279
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

970
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:44,560
Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

971
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:46,520
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.