Speaker 1: Why Uzzy Media Productions. John Lennon is dead. Police have
Speaker 1: a suspect in custody whom they describe only as a
Speaker 1: local screwball. He is Mark David Chapman, who came to
Speaker 1: New York a week ago. I left the hotel room,
Speaker 1: I brought a copy of The Catcher in the Rye.
Speaker 1: Signed it to Holding Caulfield. From Holding Caufield, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to tell you my whole goddamn autobiography or anything.
Speaker 1: I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened
Speaker 1: to me around last Christmas, just before I got pretty
Speaker 1: run down and had to come out here and take
Speaker 1: it easy. That was the holiday season for soldiers. The
Speaker 1: Catcher in the Rye. They have influenced Mark David Chapman
Speaker 1: when he killed John Lennon, But the novel had a
Speaker 1: very different purpose for the man who wrote it. It
Speaker 1: was a means of survival for J. D. Salinge. On
Speaker 1: the surface, the Catcher in the Rise of story about
Speaker 1: a teenage protagonist, Holden Caulfield, who spends a few days
Speaker 1: in New York City after getting kicked out of boarding school.
Speaker 1: Take a little deeper, and the story behind Catcher in
Speaker 1: the rye, and you'll find it's darker and more complex
Speaker 1: than people realize. This is the day for which three
Speaker 1: people long have waited. This is D Day. Salinger wrote
Speaker 1: that when he stormed the beach of Normandy on D Day,
Speaker 1: he had with him on his person six chapters of
Speaker 1: The Catcher on the Rock. No one else had copies. Kinselinski,
Speaker 1: author of J. D. Salinger A Life. In other words,
Speaker 1: if something were to happen to Salinger, holding Calfield would die,
Speaker 1: Salinger would survive, but only after witnessing and enduring unimaginable suffering.
Speaker 1: Why Lord, why must I learn to testify when all
Speaker 1: alone to bees do is to Catcher and the Rock.
Speaker 1: I'm Sean Braswell And This is the Thread a podcast
Speaker 1: from Assi Media where we examine the interlocking lives and
Speaker 1: events of history. We turned back the clock, one story
Speaker 1: at a time to reveal how various strands are woven
Speaker 1: together to create a historic figure, big idea, or an
Speaker 1: unthinkable tragedy. This season, we start with the death of
Speaker 1: rock star John Lennon and over the course of five episodes,
Speaker 1: actually connected back to communist leader Vladimir Lenin. Along the way,
Speaker 1: we meet some of the twentieth centuries greatest artists and writers.
Speaker 1: We explore how each of their stories hinge on the
Speaker 1: past and influence the future. If you are listening for
Speaker 1: the first time, please go to episode one to start
Speaker 1: our interconnected story from the beginning in The Catcher in
Speaker 1: the Eye exploded into American bookstores, the funny rye iconoclastic
Speaker 1: figure of Holden Caulfield would influence generations of young people.
Speaker 1: On the fiftieth anniversary of its publication, Louis Manand wrote
Speaker 1: in The New Yorker, Salinger is imagined to have given
Speaker 1: voice to what every adolescent thinks but is too inhibited
Speaker 1: to say. The whole emotional burden of adolescence is that
Speaker 1: you don't know why you feel unhappy, or angry or
Speaker 1: out of it. The appeal of The Catcher in the Rye,
Speaker 1: what makes it addictive, is that it provides you with
Speaker 1: a reason. It gives content to chemistry. Catcher has now
Speaker 1: sold more than sixty five million copies, and even more
Speaker 1: than half a century after its publication, it still sells
Speaker 1: around a quarter of a million books each year, and
Speaker 1: while it never reached number one on the best seller
Speaker 1: lists at the time of its release, Catcher caught Fire,
Speaker 1: thrusting the lanky, handsome and dark haired Salinger, still only
Speaker 1: thirty two, into the public spotlight. It was something of
Speaker 1: a cult novel almost immediately, and the attention of the press,
Speaker 1: the attention of the media, the attention of fans was
Speaker 1: something that Salinger could not deal with, and so he retreated.
Speaker 1: He retreated to someplace where he could write in solitude
Speaker 1: and keep to himself and for the most part, keep
Speaker 1: the world at bay. Salingers withdrawal from society made Holden's
Speaker 1: fictional protestations against modern life and phonies seem all the
Speaker 1: more real, and catapulted Catcher to even higher levels of popularity.
Speaker 1: Salinger would go on to publish many stories in the
Speaker 1: decade or so after Catcher, building worlds of damaged characters
Speaker 1: and families, including the highly precocious children of the Glass family,
Speaker 1: But all the while he retreated further and further from
Speaker 1: society until he sides he's never going to publish again,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't. He publishes his last story in nineteen,
Speaker 1: but he never stopped writing. The mysterious genius crafting unknown
Speaker 1: masterpieces was just too much for the public to resist.
Speaker 1: Salinger was stalked by media and fans throughout his time
Speaker 1: and seclusion. Those who ventured after him in the ensuing
Speaker 1: decades would encounter wall upon wall around the literary giant,
Speaker 1: from no trespassing signs to a phalanx of lawyers ready
Speaker 1: to challenge any unauthorized use of his works or stories.
Speaker 1: For more than half a century, he declined interviews and
Speaker 1: shunned photographers. This evening, one of the world's great entertainers
Speaker 1: and musicians, John Lennon of the Beatles, were shot outside
Speaker 1: his New York home. Slwinski says it's likely that Lennon's
Speaker 1: murder at the hands of Mark David Chapman only made
Speaker 1: Salinger's paranoia worse. I think he had to have been
Speaker 1: aware that if one crazy fan of mine committed this
Speaker 1: murder and killed this very famous person, I could be next.
Speaker 1: Sounder's withdrawal from the world was all the more striking
Speaker 1: given his tremendous ambition as a young man, his dreams
Speaker 1: of becoming exactly what he became, a world famous writer.
Speaker 1: How could a man turn his back on fame, How
Speaker 1: could he turn his back on fortune? How could he
Speaker 1: stop publishing? If you have a talent, are you not
Speaker 1: obligated to share it with the world. So why did
Speaker 1: he turn his back on the world just as he
Speaker 1: was achieving his dreams. Sounder's retreat began well before Lennon's
Speaker 1: death and even before Catcher made him famous. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just to avoid the media or his fans. Like many
Speaker 1: war veterans, Salinger was retreating from his own past and
Speaker 1: the devastating trauma of combat. The Second World War is,
Speaker 1: without a doubt, the pivotal event of Salinger's life. Whereas
Speaker 1: before the war all he wanted was his fame and
Speaker 1: fortune and recognition. After the war, he's very leary of people.
Speaker 1: He's very leary of crowds. He's sort of cowering from
Speaker 1: the world. Salinger didn't write much about World War Two,
Speaker 1: but one of the unpublished short stories he wrote about it,
Speaker 1: The Magic Foxhole, is mesmerizing. In it, Salinger describes the
Speaker 1: scene he must have encountered on D Day. There wasn't
Speaker 1: nothing on the beach but the dead boys of A
Speaker 1: and B company, and some dead sailor boys and a
Speaker 1: chaplain that was cooling around looking for his glasses in
Speaker 1: the sand. He was the only thing that was moving,
Speaker 1: and shows were breaking all around him, and there he
Speaker 1: was cooling around on his hands and knees, looking for
Speaker 1: his glasses. He got knocked off. That's what the beach
Speaker 1: was like when I came in. Sunder was drafted after
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor and assigned to the fourth Infantry Division. In
Speaker 1: January nine, he left for England, where he joined tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of American soldiers preparing for the Allied invasion
Speaker 1: of Europe. When D Day came, Sergeant Salander crowded into
Speaker 1: a landing craft with thirty men and launched with the
Speaker 1: second wave for Utah Beach just after six thirty a m.
Speaker 1: On June six. Within an hour of landing, his division
Speaker 1: was moving inland, and from that point on Salinger found
Speaker 1: himself in near continuous battle for the next eleven months.
Speaker 1: All the while Sounder carried those first six chapters of
Speaker 1: the Catcher in the Rye. And he carried these six
Speaker 1: chapters throughout the war as if, I think, as if
Speaker 1: there were sort of talus, as if he a derived
Speaker 1: strength from them. For months at a time. Salinger had
Speaker 1: no breaks, no rest, He did not bay their change clothes.
Speaker 1: The twenty five year old regiment suffered more casualties than
Speaker 1: any other American regiment in the war, and the young
Speaker 1: writer witnessed the deaths of countless friends and fellow soldiers.
Speaker 1: Salinger's division was also one of the first to enter Germany,
Speaker 1: where he ended up in the middle of the bloodiest
Speaker 1: fighting of the war, including the infamous Battle of Hitkin Forest.
Speaker 1: Hrdkin entailed perhaps the most senseless carnage of the whole war,
Speaker 1: historians considered a big strategic blunder and waste of human life.
Speaker 1: Men fought from tree line to tree line in the
Speaker 1: dark forest and froze to death in the bitter cold
Speaker 1: foxhols they slept in. Most of the soldiers the challenge
Speaker 1: served with died, and most of them died not from
Speaker 1: battle wounds, but from disease and from the elements, and
Speaker 1: from frostbite and cold. And he was very nearly one
Speaker 1: of those numbers. There were more than three thousand soldiers
Speaker 1: and Sunder's regiment that went to Hoodkin. Just over five
Speaker 1: hundred survived. Sunder was one of the lucky ones, but
Speaker 1: his fighting was not over. Next came the Battle of
Speaker 1: the Bulge, the costliest engagement in US Army history, where
Speaker 1: over one hundred thousand American soldiers were killed, more fighting
Speaker 1: in the forest, more sleeping in frigid conditions. The high
Speaker 1: tide of this German attack was reached two days after Christmas.
Speaker 1: That was the holiday's season for soldiers ninety four. In April,
Speaker 1: the winter thought and Sounder's division sighed with relief. It
Speaker 1: appeared the worst was behind them. Then they came upon
Speaker 1: the concentration camps at Dachau. Salinger in his division flung
Speaker 1: open the gates and prisoners emerged, wearing black and white
Speaker 1: striped suits and caps like skeletons and rags. You could
Speaker 1: live a lifetime salon your later, told his daughter, and
Speaker 1: never really get the smell of burning flesh out of
Speaker 1: your nose. To see that level of depravity, that level
Speaker 1: of evil in the world has got to rock you,
Speaker 1: has got to change you. He used writing throughout the
Speaker 1: war as a sort of self therapy, as the way
Speaker 1: of dealing with the horrors that he he was witnessing
Speaker 1: and what he was going through. It was almost as
Speaker 1: if he was clinging to writing as if it were normalcy.
Speaker 1: It was something normal to him in a world that's
Speaker 1: gone insane. Souder wrote a handful of unpublished war stories,
Speaker 1: but he promised himself that he would not write about
Speaker 1: the war if he escaped alive. It was a vow
Speaker 1: he kept, but the war still infused his work. Take
Speaker 1: this well known line from the final chapter of The
Speaker 1: Catcher in the Rye about all I know is I
Speaker 1: sort of missed everybody I told about. It's funny. Don't
Speaker 1: ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.
Speaker 1: The angst of Catcher, which would influence millions of readers,
Speaker 1: including Mark David Chapman, may not have been the words
Speaker 1: of a troubled young man trying to make his way
Speaker 1: in the world so much as a grown man trying
Speaker 1: to hold his together. Like everything that Salinger wrote after
Speaker 1: World War Two, the war simmers just beneath the surface.
Speaker 1: World War Two might have destroyed point of Salinger, but
Speaker 1: it made him a writer. There would be no catch
Speaker 1: on the right were not for the certain World War.
Speaker 1: The character of Holding Caulfield might have matured in the
Speaker 1: bloody battlefields of Europe, but he was born before the
Speaker 1: war in a Manhattan hotel room. Up next, Salinger collides
Speaker 1: with the world of the Phonies, the upper crust of
Speaker 1: New York's elite society and the girl that broke his heart.
Speaker 1: The threat is brought to you by Azzy Fest. Azzi
Speaker 1: Fest brings together incredible music, provocative ideas, laugh out loud comedy,
Speaker 1: and mouth watering food in New York City's Central Park.
Speaker 1: Check it out at ausi dot com slash Azzi Fest.
Speaker 1: Young Jerry Salinger grew up like Holden Caulfield on the
Speaker 1: Upper East Side, easily the postoust area of Manhattan because
Speaker 1: it's not no as kid. Plainly put, he had an ego.
Speaker 1: Even as a child, he had a great ego. He
Speaker 1: was convinced that he was destined for greatness. He bragged
Speaker 1: to his friends even as a teenager, that he would
Speaker 1: one day write the great American novel. Salinger published his
Speaker 1: first short story just after his twenty one birthday in
Speaker 1: nineteen He promptly dropped out of Columbia University, convinced that
Speaker 1: this was the first step in a dazzling writing career.
Speaker 1: For several months afterwards, he couldn't sell another story. Rejection
Speaker 1: after rejection piled up. I wondered if I was a
Speaker 1: has been at twenty one, He later said, he spent
Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen forty one with friends on the
Speaker 1: Jersey shore. There he hung out with the privileged young
Speaker 1: people that he had made fun of in his stories.
Speaker 1: One of them was the dazzling and very famous Una O'Neill.
Speaker 1: Salinger was taken with Una almost immediately. She was literary royalty,
Speaker 1: the daughter of the Nobel Award winning playwright Eugene O'Neil,
Speaker 1: and at sixteen years old, Una was captivating, was stunning
Speaker 1: in her beauty. She was absolutely gorgeous, She was vivacious,
Speaker 1: she was young, she was witty. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: there was something privilege about Una O'Neill. Salinger was crazy
Speaker 1: about her. Here's how he describes when such love struck
Speaker 1: encounter and catcher. She knocked me out. I mean it.
Speaker 1: I was half in love with her by the time
Speaker 1: we sat down. That's that's the thing about girls. Every
Speaker 1: time they do something pretty, even if they're not much
Speaker 1: to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid,
Speaker 1: you fall half in love with them, and then you
Speaker 1: never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: they can drive you crazy, they really can. Salinger meets
Speaker 1: O'Neill and he's just head over heels and he's probably
Speaker 1: walking on clouds when he returns home to New York
Speaker 1: at the end of the summer. It was a romance
Speaker 1: that would impact Salinger for years. He was obsessed with Una.
Speaker 1: He bragged about her to all his friends and family.
Speaker 1: Problem was he had trouble keeping up. His parents were wealthy,
Speaker 1: but he didn't have an allowance. Now, Salezer was a
Speaker 1: no one. He's a broke no one too, and he's
Speaker 1: dating this this famous woman with a very famous father,
Speaker 1: and the paparazzi following them around. And here's Jerry next time.
Speaker 1: And he's trying to date this woman and take up
Speaker 1: to these places that he can barely afford. Salinger wasn't
Speaker 1: the only one in love with Una O'Neill. Many older,
Speaker 1: more sophisticated, and much wealthier men wanted Una on their arm. Salinger,
Speaker 1: he has this aversion to what famously will become known
Speaker 1: as phoniness. And all of these people are about his phonies.
Speaker 1: You're going to get So he has the simmering musentment
Speaker 1: for all of these people who were surrounding Una, and
Speaker 1: she craves that attention. Salder knew he couldn't keep this
Speaker 1: up long. He had to be a published author, published
Speaker 1: in the likes of The New Yorker if he had
Speaker 1: any chance of keeping Una. The New Yorker was the
Speaker 1: epitome of success or any writer of short stories, and
Speaker 1: Salinger wanted to be published in The New Yorker more
Speaker 1: than anything else. So when it comes time to right
Speaker 1: at the end of the summer, he doesn't just go home.
Speaker 1: He checks into a hotel room in New York and
Speaker 1: begins to type out a short story. This story, A
Speaker 1: Slight Rebellion off Madison, is the first appearance of Holden Caulfield.
Speaker 1: That's where Holding and the Catching the Rye are actually
Speaker 1: born out of sallengers, meaning with As the fall of
Speaker 1: forty one went on, Salinger felt Una slipping away, which
Speaker 1: added to the urgency of getting published. The New Yorker
Speaker 1: had rejected seven of Salinger's stories, but finally A Slight
Speaker 1: Rebellion was accepted. It was scheduled to run and it's
Speaker 1: Christmas issue. And then the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor yesterday
Speaker 1: the summus some nineteen, a date which will live in infamation.
Speaker 1: The New Yorker put his story on hold, and in
Speaker 1: April nineteen two, Salinger received his draft notice and reported
Speaker 1: for boot camp at Fort Dix in New Jersey. That
Speaker 1: same month, Una received her own designation from New York
Speaker 1: Society Debutante of the Year. Just a few months later,
Speaker 1: Una left New York City to be a movie star
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. He knew he was losing her affections her,
Speaker 1: he was losing her attention, and one day, while Salinger
Speaker 1: was still at boot camp, he saw in the news
Speaker 1: purpose that Na O'Neil had married Charlie Chaplin. And that's
Speaker 1: how we found out that the love of his life,
Speaker 1: at least at that time, had left him. Charlie Chaplin,
Speaker 1: world famous movie star and more than thirty years her senior.
Speaker 1: On June sixte the eighteen year old Una had the
Speaker 1: fifty four year old Chaplain at a Justice of the Piece.
Speaker 1: She was his fourth wife. Salinger was freshed more than
Speaker 1: anything else. He's humiliated because he has bragged to his family,
Speaker 1: he has bragged to his friends and Una O'Neill, the
Speaker 1: famous Una O'Neill is his girlfriend. A man scorned is
Speaker 1: worse than a woman scorned. This is James Scoville, Una
Speaker 1: O'Neill biographer. When she married Chaplain, he sent a letter
Speaker 1: was awful letter. And it's this vicious, really vicious um
Speaker 1: satire of how he imagines Una and Charlie Chaplin's wedding night,
Speaker 1: complete with illustrations. It was a notorious, notorious letter. When
Speaker 1: lashing out didn't make him feel any better, Salander took
Speaker 1: another tax is. He feigns this sort of romantic apnesia. Oh,
Speaker 1: I never loved Una, he says, I've forgotten all about Una.
Speaker 1: Will Of course that's not the truth, because only weeks
Speaker 1: before he told if friend, I would marry Una tomorrow,
Speaker 1: if only she would have me. One year after Salinger
Speaker 1: found out about UNA's wedding, he was fighting for his
Speaker 1: life on the beaches of Normandy. Una was the great
Speaker 1: romantic tragedy of Salinger's life. She played a huge role
Speaker 1: in the birth of Holding Caulfield and Salinger's tirade against
Speaker 1: the phoniness of New York haised society. Without his heartbreak,
Speaker 1: without his battle fatigue, could Salinger have written The Catcher
Speaker 1: in the Rye without Holding Caullfield to channel with Mark
Speaker 1: David Chapman had gone over the edge. In our next episode,
Speaker 1: we pick up the thread with Una O'Neil Chaplin. She's
Speaker 1: not nearly as well known as some of the men
Speaker 1: whose lives she touched, including Truman, Capodi, Orson Wells, Charlie Chaplin,
Speaker 1: and of course J. D. Salinger. Soon you'll hear her
Speaker 1: whispering in the background of America's greatest masterpieces, from The
Speaker 1: Catcher in the Rye to Breakfast at Ephanis, Let's Learn
Speaker 1: the Test and by when All I want to be
Speaker 1: just a Catcher and the Threat is produced by Meredith
Speaker 1: hot Nut, Laby Coleman, and me Sean braswell. Our editors
Speaker 1: are Carlos Watson and Samir Rao. Meredith hot Knot engineered
Speaker 1: our show with mixing and sound design from James Rowland's
Speaker 1: and Chris Hoff. Special thanks to Cindy Carpi and David Boyer,
Speaker 1: Tracy Moran, Sean Colligan, Sun, Jeeve Tandon, Jeremy Williams, Cameo, George,
Speaker 1: and k A. LW. This episode featured the song Catcher
Speaker 1: in the Rye by Sammy Walker. Check us out at
Speaker 1: ausy dot com, that's o z y dot com, or
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Facebook. To learn more about the thread,
Speaker 1: visit ausi dot com. Slash the thread all one word,
Speaker 1: and make sure to subscribe to the thread on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: If you love surprising, engaging stories from history like this one,
Speaker 1: look no further than the flashback section of Ozzie. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. H