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Letters released after JD Salinger’s death reveal that the reclusive author enjoyed bus tours, gardening, and Burger King Whoppers. He watched TV and followed tennis, but didn’t want media attention. Salinger wrote part of The Catcher in the Rye while serving in WWII and dated Oona O’Neill before she married Charlie Chaplin.
In the collective imagination, The Catcher in the Rye author JD Salinger has joined fellow writers Thomas Pynchon and Emily Dickinson in his desire to be alone. But according to letters to a friend that were released after Salinger’s death, the author’s private life was far more engaging than one would expect for a recluse. Salinger wrote that he enjoyed going on bus tours of Niagara Falls, working in his garden, and even made a habit of ordering Whoppers at Burger King, which he described as “better than just edible.” The letters, written to Salinger’s old friend Donald Hartog and given by Hartog’s daughter, show Salinger as an ordinary guy who just didn’t want the media attention. But he wasn’t exactly hiding in the dark in his attic. Instead, he watched television, specifically Upstairs Downstairs, and followed the career of British tennis star Tim Henman. Salinger’s 50 letters and four postcards to Hartog are now available to the public through the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England.
Highlights of Salinger:
Salinger wrote part of The Catcher in the Rye while serving in the United States Army during World War II.
Before Charlie Chaplin married her, Oona O’Neill, daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill, dated Salinger.
Salinger rejected media attention when Catcher became a hit, but he did grant an interview to a high school reporter.
