Edward Norton, John Cusack, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Martin Sheen are among a star-studded line up of A-Listers who headline a soon-to-be-released documentary on J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye.
J.D. Salinger in 1952
September 5, 2013 is the scheduled release date of the Weinstein Company-distributed doco, which the publicists say “provides an unprecedented look inside the private world of J.D. Salinger”.
Listed as one of the best novels of the 20th Century, The Catcher in the Rye was also the most censored book and the second most taught book in US public schools at one point. Its vulgarity, sexual references and alleged undermining of family values have seen it earn the dubious distinction of being one of the most frequently challenged books since the early 1990’s.
Total sales 65 million and rising.
The Catcher in the Rye has been associated with several high profile shootings including and John Hinckley Jr’s assassination attempt on Ronal Reagan and Mark David Chapman’s shooting of John Lennon. Chapman was arrested with his own worn copy of the book on his person.
The Catcher in the Rye features prominently in our conspiracy thriller series The Orphan Trilogy – most notably in book one, The Ninth Orphan. Our references to Salinger’s book are made in the context of the CIA-sanctioned MK-Ultra mind control activities, which made international headlines at the time. Google “MK-Ultra” some time… It makes for sobering reading!
This book acknowledges Catcher’s hold on people.
Meanwhile, Associated Press reports the authors of a new J.D. Salinger biography claim they have cracked one of publishing’s greatest mysteries: what the author of The Catcher in the Rye was working on during the last half century of his life.
AP reports a series of posthumous Salinger releases are planned after 2015, according to David Shields and Shane Salerno, whose book Salinger will be published on 3 September… Providing by far the most detailed report of previously unreleased material, the book’s authors cite “two independent and separate sources” who they say have “documented and verified” the information.
The Salinger books would revisit Catcher protagonist Holden Caulfield and draw on Salinger’s World War II years and his immersion in eastern religion. The material also would feature new stories about the Glass family of Franny and Zooey and other Salinger works…
Over the past 50 years, there has been endless and conflicting speculation over what Salinger was doing during his self-imposed retirement. That Salinger continued to write is well documented. The author himself told the New York Times in 1974 that he wrote daily, although only for himself.
But there is no consensus on what he was writing and no physical evidence of what Salinger had reportedly stashed in a safe in his home in Cornish, New Hampshire. The Salinger estate…has remained silent on the subject since the author’s death in January 2010. –AP.
And so the intrigue over The Catcher in the Rye and its mysterious author continues!
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