J.D. Salinger Letter Signed on Relationships and his Continued Writing After His Last Publication

Salinger, J.D. American author of The Catcher in the Rye. Typed letter signed "Jerry". 2 pages. August 4, 1979. To Eileen Paddison, a close friend and aspiring writer who maintained a correspondence with Salinger for over 15 years. A letter detailing his distrust of "the typical AMA-abiding mind" (by which he means non-homeopathic western medicine doctors) and the difficulty of being a good sibling, "small hell for a tolerant sister with a telephone in the house." Both for the anti-establishment content, and the interplay of sibling relations content, this letter is richly exemplative of Salinger's attitudes as a person and as an author. Most fascinating however, is Salinger's admission in this letter that he is "working", (by which he means that he continues to write), although his last novella, "Hapworth 16, 1924, had been published 14 years earlier, and no more of his fiction would ever be published.

An encouraging and personal letter by J.D. Salinger, one of America's great authors. In 1972, a boarding school student with family problems, much like Holden Caulfield, wrote to the reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye,and then something almost unheard of happened-he wrote back. Seven years later, the correspondence had blossomed into a friendship, with the author offering sage fatherly advice to Eileen Paddison. Of particular interest in any Salinger letter is the presence of sibling relationship content, which was a chief focus of his fiction. This letter is particularly rich in that regard, as Salinger provides his sympathetic yet comically rich commentary, "I don't think it would be a good idea, at all, if you let yourself feel Guilt you're your responses to Jeannie's nature and lot. Guilt's such an onus, and I can't see that it's called for here (if anywhere) anyway. She sounds excruciatingly disorderly, irresponsible, tiresome, and no doubt small hell on any tolerant sister with a telephone in the house." In contrast, he offers his sympathy and encouragement to news of her brother David's thyroid cancer. In The Catcher in the Rye, the underlying impetus for Holden's mental break was the cancer death of his brother Allie.

The letter is also unusual for having personal content about Salinger's life and his family, which the author generally kept a jealously guarded secret. His son Matthew has "finished his freshman year of college" and his daughter Peggy "has had a series of tread-water high-paying blue-collar jobs, but is going back to college this fall, she tells me, at 23, nearly 24, which may be a good idea." Twice divorced and living alone at the time of this letter, Salinger offers some advice probably gleaned from his own experience. "The arrival or advent of Babies, Children, new and lovable distractions though they can be, does not necessarily make things snugger or rosier or closer between the parents. Better just count your blessings as they are."

After The Catcher in the Rye catapulted Salinger to fame in 1951, J.D. Salinger retreated from New York City to a cabin in rural New Hampshire, and following a fraught series of interactions with the publishing industry which gradually eroded his trust, Salinger made the decision to never again publish his fiction. Over the years, theories abounded about whether Salinger had stopped writing, or whether a stockpile of stories would emerge some day. But since his death in 2010, at the age of 91, no such work has emerged. Despite confirmation from the Salinger family that his writing was preserved and will be published, potential publication dates have come and gone, leaving the public to wonder if we will ever see the product of this solitary genius mind. This letter, written during the mysterious and isolated period of Salinger's life, confirms that he was writing and doing so consistently, "I've been working and doing pretty much what I usually do."

Also with content on Salinger's famous distaste for the medical establishment. Salinger himself followed homeopathic and Eastern medicine, and it seemed to work for him, since he lived to be 91. The author's comments here are particularly biting, "How damnable are many, if not most, medical vogues. Yes, vogues. Fashions in medicine. What secondhanders nearly all doctors are! How ready and willing they are to go along with what's New. I do despise and fear the typical AMA-abiding mind." However, he feels about medicine in general, Salinger is hopeful and encouraging to his young woman correspondent about her own ambition, "...Oh Eileen, if you're going to go into Medicine professionally, do make it your grim business to concern yourself with something physiologically basic...There is undoubtedly so much that homo sapiens does wrong, does to his peril, and that the professional experts haven't even begun to suspect as a factor." A long, 2 page letter, on the author's usual goldenrod paper. Signed with the signature generally reserved only for friends, "Jerry" and followed by a postscript. Original typed mailing envelope bearing his PO Box address in Windsor, Vermont, the usual mailing address he preferred while writing from his home in Cornish, New Hampshire. A simultaneously sympathetic and acerbic letter from the literary king of such unlikely combinations, J.D. Salinger. In very good condition.