J.D. Salinger published surprisingly little for an author who supposedly wrote every day until his death in 2010. Despite his inability to connect with the rest of the literary world — not to mention much of the world at large — he drew a great deal of acclaim and popular attention. Once considered the most important American writer to emerge since World War II, J.D. Salinger turned his back on celebrity and acclaim, eventually becoming famous for not wanting to be famous.

Over the years, J.D. Salinger’s reclusive secrecy and staunch desire for privacy became as well-known as his writing. The more he declined requests for interviews and public appearances, the more his legend grew. Despite the barriers Salinger created to protect himself and his art, they were not enough to keep his writings from resonating in the American psyche. Here are some facts — including the bad, weird, gross, and/or problematic ones — about the life, death, and legacy of the beloved and notorious J.D. Salinger.

 

J.D. Salinger: Early Life & Education

1. When was J.D Salinger born?

Jerome David Salinger was born in Manhattan, New York on January 1st, 1919 — New Year’s Day. He was the second and last child to his parents after his Doris, his older sister, who was born 7 years earlier. Eventually, the Salinger clan moved to the Carnegie Hill neighborhood of Manhattan to 1133 Park Avenue, where they would remain for 42 years.

2. J.D.’s Salinger’s mother pretended to be Jewish… and was pretty good at it

J.D. Salinger’s father was Sol Salinger, a Jewish trader in kosher and the son of a rabbi. Salinger’s mother’s name was Marie, but she changed her first name to Miriam to fit in better with her husband’s family and considered herself Jewish as well. She was so good at hiding her non-Jewish origins that Salinger himself didn’t find out about it until after his bar mitzvah.

3. J.D. Salinger nicknamed himself Jerry

From 1932 to 1934, J.D. Salinger attended the McBurney School in Manhattan on 5 West 63rd Street — a private, college prep institution that Henry Winkler and Robert De Niro also attended — where he had trouble fitting in after transferring from a public school. Wanting to fit in better with his peers, Salinger gave himself a less formal name and started calling himself Jerry.

4. As a budding actor, J.D. Salinger signed his yearbook with his characters’ names

Before J.D. Salinger discovered his passion for writing, he was the school’s star actor, which was something his father didn’t approve of. Nevertheless, Salinger loved being on stage and even signed his yearbook with names of characters he played.

5. J.D. Salinger did a lot of extracurricular activities

While attending Valley Forge Military Academy, J.D. Salinger had his first interaction with the writing stories, spending nights working on them under the covers with a flashlight, editing his class yearbook, being a member in the French club, aviation club — and even the Glee club!

 

6. Where did J.D. Salinger go to college?

In 1938, J.D. Salinger enrolled Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, where he had his own newspaper column called Skipped Diploma that featured movie reviews. However, Salinger only attended one semester before he dropped out and started taking writing classes at the Columbia University School of General Studies in Manhattan at night.

7. J.D. Salinger met Whit Burnett at Columbia University

Whit Burnett was the editor of Story magazine and taught J.D. Salinger’s writing class at Columbia University. At first, J.D. was not giving a lot of effort but Burnett believed Salinger’s stories had a high level of skill and took that faith a step further when he decided to publish “The Young Folks” in Story magazine. Burnett would later become Salinger’s mentor for many years after that.

 

Life & Times of J.D. Salinger

8. J.D. Salinger was probably a vegetarian

When J.D. Salinger’s father sent him to Poland to learn about the meat-importing business, Salinger was repulsed by the slaughterhouse, which is believed to have inspired his vegetarianism as an adult.

9. Oona O’Neill dumped J.D. Salinger for Charlie Chaplin

Despite finding her completely self-absorbed and confiding to a friend that “Little Oona’s hopelessly in love with little Oona,” J.D. Salinger dated Oona O’Neill, the daughter of the famous playwright Eugene O’Neill. Eventually, Oona ended their relationship when she started dating Charlie Chaplin, whom she eventually married.

10. J.D. Salinger once worked on a cruise ship

After finding out that the meat industry wasn’t for him, J.D. Salinger worked briefly on a Caribbean Cruise ship in late 1941. There, he was an activity director and was also believed to have given a few performances. Totally believable, given his proclivities as an actor in high school.

11. J.D. Salinger insisted on not being re-written

While pitching his stories to publications, J.D. Salinger’s reputation was already becoming renowned in literary circles for refusing to let editors change a single word of his work. While working as a magazine editor, A.E. Hotchner (who was also buddies with Ernest Hemingway and Paul Newman) remembers receiving a piece from Salinger with the note “Either as-is or not at all.” Once, another editor had altered the title of his work and when A.E. Hotchner informed Salinger, the writer became enraged. “He said it was a terrible deceit on my part,” Hotchner recalled. The two never saw each other again after Salinger stormed out.

 

12. J.D. Salinger was present at D-Day

After the U.S became involved in World War II, J.D. Salinger was drafted in the army in the spring of 1942. He was present at Utah Beach on D-Day, and in the Battle of Bulge and the Battle of Hürtgen Forest.

13. J.D. Salinger corresponded with Ernest Hemingway during the war

During the campaign from Normandy to Germany, J.D. Salinger met with Ernest Hemingway, a writer who had influenced him and was working as a war correspondent in Paris at the time. Salinger admired Hemingway’s modesty, while Hemingway said that Salinger “has a helluva talent.” They continued corresponding and in July 1946, Salinger wrote to Hemingway that their conversations were one of his few happy memories of the war.

14. Did J.D. Salinger have a nervous breakdown?

The war clearly traumatized J.D. Salinger. After his service, he developed what would later be known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He was hospitalized in Nuremberg in 1945 after suffering a psychological breakdown due to witnessing some particularly horrific battles on D-Day and in Luxembourg. His melancholy state had been consistent, and he sought therapy “before it got out of hand,” as he wrote to Ernest Hemingway. The war also informed his literary work, particularly “For Esmé — with Love and Squalor.”

15. Who was J.D. Salinger married to?

Following Germany’s defeat, J.D. Salinger joined the Counterintelligence Corps for a six-month “Denazification” assignment in Germany. He lived in Weißenburg and married Sylvia Welter not long after, bringing her to the U.S with him in April 1946. However, the marriage ended after just 8 months, and Sylvia returned to Germany.

16. J.D. Salinger had to forge Sylvia Welter’s papers

Sylvia Welter was a woman with many secrets. She was intelligent, had a doctorate in medicine, attractive, and she was both German and French. However, she preferred to disguise her German heritage whenever possible. When Salinger and Welter married, they just avoided the non-fraternization law’s penalties by forging Welter’s identifying papers to make her appear non-German.

17. Sylvia Welter might have been a member of the Gestapo

When the couple settled in New York, J.D. Salinger’s Jewish parents were not pleased with the new addition to the family, referring to her as “the enemy.” Sylvia Welter was rumored to have been a member of the Gestapo — y’know, the secret Nazi police — the very people Salinger had been working to capture in the war. When Salinger found out, their relationship was ruined, and Welter awoke one morning to find a plane ticket to Germany on her breakfast plate.

18. Sylvia Welter was the only love interest of J.D. Salinger who was his age

J.D. Salinger met Sylvia Welter when they were both 26. Creepily, Sylvia would be the first — and last and only — age-appropriate love interest of Salinger.

19. J.D. Salinger got involved with a 14-year-old when he was 30

Many years after his death, Jean Miller finally opened up to how she met Salinger when she was only 14 years old. The two met at a Sheraton hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida. As she explains: “I was sitting at a pool, I was reading Wuthering Heights. And he said, ‘How is Heathcliff?’”

 

20. J.D. Salinger and Jean Miller’s relationship lasted for 5 years

Jean Miller’s childlike personality drew J.D. Salinger to her, and he imagined about their life together, telling Miller’s mother, “I’m going to marry your daughter.”  When Miller turned 20, she persuaded him to sleep with her while they were in Montreal together. Miller’s innocence — and Salinger’s interest in her, the jerk — were lost as a result of this.

21. J.D. Salinger based a character on Jean Miller

Jean Miller’s innocence inspired him, and he used her as the model for the title character in the story “For Esme — With Love and Squalor.”  The story shows an adult man writing letters to a little girl with whom he is obsessed.

22. J.D. Salinger swept Claire Douglas away from her husband

J.D. Salinger was 31 when he spotted 16-year-old Claire Douglas at a party and began pursuing her immediately. The two began a correspondence that consisted mostly of letters with the occasional visit. However, Salinger ghosted her, most likely because he was still in contact with Jean Miller at the time and Douglas married another man. Salinger contacted Douglas again, who ended up leaving her husband right after.

23. J.D. Salinger’s wedding present to Claire Douglas was a story

J.D. Salinger married Claire Douglas in February 1955. His novelette Franny, a tale whose main character was modeled after Douglas and struggles to find herself through her religion, was his wedding gift to Douglas.

24. Did J.D. Salinger have children?

J.D. Salinger and Claire Douglas had two children: Margaret — often known as Peggy — was born on December 10, 1955, and Matthew was born February 13, 1960.

25. J.D. Salinger tried out many religions in his lifetime

J.D. Salinger tried out new religions as casually as other people tried out new outfits. Despite being raised Jewish, Salinger went on to pursue Zen Buddhism, Catholicism, Vedantic Hinduism, Christian Science, and even Dianetics, which would later grow into Scientology.

26. Claire Douglas was sick of J.D. Salinger’s religious shifts

Despite committing Kriya Yoga based on his wishes, J.D. Salinger chronically left his family to work on a story “for several weeks only to return with the piece he was supposed to be finishing all undone or destroyed and some new ‘ism’ we had to follow,” Claire explained. “It was to cover the fact that Jerry had just destroyed or junked or couldn’t face the quality of, or couldn’t face publishing, what he had created.”

27. Margaret Salinger believed there was another reason for her parents’ marriage

In her 2001 memoir Dream Catcher, J.D. Salinger’s daughter Margaret states that her parents would not have been married or considered having her if it wasn’t for the fact that her father read the teachings of Lahiri Mahasaya, a guru of Paramahansa Yogananda, which brought the possibility of enlightenment to those following the path of the “householder.”

Click on the dreamcatcher to buy Dream Catcher: A Memoir by Margaret A. Salinger!

28. J.D Salinger’s son grew up to be an actor and a producer

Matthew Douglas Salinger is an American actor and producer, who made his film debut in the 1984’s movie Revenge of the Nerds. Matt Salinger’s other film credits include Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) and The Ice Road (2021), as well as appearances in Picket Fences, 24, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He also played Captain America in a 1990 film — which should NOT be confused with the Chris Evans-led franchise.

29. Matt Salinger doesn’t typically like sharing details of his childhood

In contrast to Margaret Salinger, who shared her childhood details in her memoir, Matt Salinger has been devoted to protecting his father’s privacy even after his father’s death. Matt Salinger even penned a letter to The New York Observer a few weeks after Margaret’s book was published, mocking his sister’s “gothic tales of our supposed childhood.” Lately, however, Matt may have loosened up, and he even spoke to Penguin in 2019 about the legacy of his father.

30. J.D. Salinger might have drank his own pee 😬

J.D Salinger quickly became disenchanted with Christian scientology and shifted his attention to several different alternative spiritual, medical, and nutritional belief systems. In her memoir, Margaret confessed that her father occasionally sipped his own urine, as he believed it had many health benefits.

31. J.D. Salinger stayed close to his family after his divorce — literally

J.D Salinger and Claire Douglas got divorced in 1967, and Claire won the custody of their children. Salinger walked the extra mile to remain close to his family, quite literally, by building a new house for himself right across the road of their home so he could visit them frequently.

32. Who was J.D. Salinger influenced by?

When asked about his literary influences, J.D. Salinger replied, “I love Kafka, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Proust, O’Casey, Rilke, Lorca, Keats, Rimbaud, Burns, E. Brontë, Jane Austen, Henry James, Blake, Coleridge. I won’t name any living writers. I don’t think it’s right” (although O’Casey was actually alive at the time).

33. J.D. Salinger often met with high school students 😬

J.D. Salinger was particularly friendly with students at Windsor High School during his time at Cornish, and he frequently invited them to play records and talk about school. Shirley Blaney was one of these students and was able to score an interview with J.D. Salinger for the high school newspaper. Later, Salinger was disappointed to learn that it was published on the first page of the local paper by an editor. He then put up a six-foot, six-inch tall fence around his property, further walling himself off from prying eyes.

34. J.D. Salinger was a film buff

According to his daughter Margaret, J.D. Salinger’s favorite movies included Gigi (1958), The Lady Vanishes (1938), The 39 Steps (1935), which was the character Phoebe’s, favorite movie in The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger excessively collected classic movies from the 1940s in 16mm prints and his daughter also argued that the way he viewed the world was heavily influenced by the movies of his day, as she explains: “To my father, all Spanish speakers are Puerto Rican washerwomen, or the toothless, grinning-gypsy types in a Marx Brothers movie.”

35. J.D. Salinger didn’t cry much

Like many American manly men of the times, J.D. Salinger’s tears didn’t make an appearance very often. In her memoir, his daughter noted that the only time she had ever seen her father cry was when the JFK’s funeral procession was on T.V.

36. J.D. Salinger pursued an 18-year-old after reading an article by her in The New York Times

Joyce Maynard published an article “An Eighteen-Year-Old Looks Back on Life” in The New York Times in 1972, turning her into a celebrity. The 53-year-old Salinger immediately took an interest in her and their nine-month relationship started when Salinger sent to the young Maynard warning her of the dangers of fame in the publishing industry.

37. Joyce Maynard moved in with J.D. Salinger after exchanging 25 letters

Joyce Maynard moved in with J.D. Salinger the summer after exchanging 25 letters and dropped out of Yale University following her freshman year. Maynard put it best when she said that Salinger’s words have an addictive quality to them and that “Getting a letter from J.D. Salinger was like getting a letter from Holden Caulfield but written just to me — It was a pretty strong drug. It was the only drug I took in college.”

38. Joyce Maynard and J.D. Salinger’s relationship ended while they were on vacation

Their relationship between J.D. Salinger and Joyce Maynard began to fall apart when Maynard indicated an interest in starting a family. While on vacation, Salinger abruptly ended their relationship because he had no desire in having any more children, and probably even less interest in having to look at a more mature and pregnant version of Maynard.

39. Joyce Maynard accused J.D. Salinger of grooming her

In a 2021 Vanity Fair article, Joyce Maynard stated that she “was groomed to be the sexual partner of a narcissist who nearly derailed my life,” and that she had heard from dozens of women whom J.D. Salinger had also written to while they were teenagers. Also, she explained that “in the case of one girl, Salinger was writing letters to her while I sat in the next room, believing he was my soul mate and partner for life.”

40. Joyce Maynard auctioned J.D. Salinger’s letters to her

Twenty-five years after the end of their relationship and deep into a successful career as a novelist, Joyce Maynard auctioned a series of J.D. Salinger’s letter to her. Maynard stated that she was obliged to auction the letters due to financial problems, rather than donating them to Yale’s Beinecke Library. Peter Norton — the software developer dude behind Norton Utilities — paid $169,411.25 for the letters and announced that he would return them to J.D. Salinger to do whatever Jerry wanted with them.

41. Joyce Maynard wrote a memoir about her relationship with J.D. Salinger

The Joyce Maynard memoir At Home in the World was published in 1999, the same year when she auctioned J.D. Salinger’s letters. The memoir is well renowned for its in-depth retelling of her connection with Salinger, whom she paints as a predator, and it covers her entire life up to that moment. Many critics criticized the book upon its release, including Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post who called it “indescribably stupid.” Read it and see for yourself!

42. J.D. Salinger had a private relationship with Colleen O’Neill

Little is known about Salinger’s relationships after Joyce Maynard. It wasn’t until Salinger’s house caught fire that the public learned about his new girlfriend, Colleen O’Neill, who was the one that contacted the fire department. The exact start of their relationship is unknown because it was kept secret from the public eye, but the two eventually married, and O’Neill was J.D. Salinger’s third and final wife.

43. J.D. Salinger didn’t want grandchildren

In her memoir, Margaret Salinger wrote that once she told her father that she was pregnant he was furious at her, saying that she “had no right to bring a child into this lousy world” and hoped she was getting an abortion. Damn, Jerry.

What books J.D. Salinger famous for?

44. The New Yorker rejected seven of J.D. Salinger’s stories in 1941

These seven stories included “Lunch for Three” and “I Went to School with Adolf Hitler.” Eventually in December that year, The New Yorker gave the green light to the publication of “Slight Rebellion off Madison.” However, when Pearl Harbor occurred that very same month, the story was considered inappropriate and didn’t appear in The New Yorker until 1946.

45. J.D. Salinger first introduced the Glasses in his short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”

“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” was the first of J.D. Salinger’s published stories to feature the Glasses, a family formed of two vaudeville actors and their seven precocious offspring. He went on to write seven more stories about them, building up a comprehensive family history and focusing on Seymour, the brilliant but troubled eldest son.

46. Are there any J.D. Salinger movies?

Only one J.D. Salinger story has ever been licensed to be made into a movie. Samuel Goldwyn, the famous film producer, asked to buy the film rights to his short piece “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut” in mid-1948. When the film was released in 1949 as My Foolish Heart, critics trashed it. As a result, Jerry refused to allow cinematic adaptations of his work in the future. Salinger even declined to sell the rights to “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” to Brigitte Bardot.

47. There was a movie adaptation of “Franny and Zooey” that J.D. Salinger did not consent to

Pari, an unlicensed loose adaptation of “Franny and Zooey,” was released in 1995 by Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui. The film could be legally shown in Iran as it has no copyright agreements with the US. However, J.D. Salinger had his attorneys prevent a planned screening of it at Lincoln Center in 1998. Mehrjui described Salinger’s actions as “bewildering,” noting that his picture was intended to be “a form of cultural exchange.” Perhaps predictably, given the Salinger estate tendency to guard the work, Pari is very hard to track down to watch.

48. Is The Catcher in the Rye a true story?

The Catcher in the Rye is not a true story, but J.D. Salinger once admitted that it’s somewhat based on himself. “My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book, and it was a great relief telling people about it,” Salinger said in a 1953 interview with a high school newspaper, revealing that the novel was “sort of” autobiographical.

49. When was The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger published?

On July 16, 1951, Little, Brown and Company published The Catcher in the Rye. The novel debut by J.D. Salinger had mixed reviews — but it was a bestseller anyway. The New York Times praised the novel as “an unusually brilliant first novel,” while others condemned the book’s monotonous language and the character’s “immorality and perversion,” as he uses religious insults and openly discusses casual sex and prostitution. Nevertheless, the novel was a huge hit, and was reprinted eight times within two months after its first release. It was also on the New York Times bestseller list for 30 weeks.

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50. The Catcher in the Rye was frequently censored, yet frequently taught in public schools

The Catcher in The Rye was formerly the most heavily censored book in the country, as well as the second-most-taught novel in public high schools. Newspapers began to print articles about the “Catcher Cult,” and the work was banned in various countries — as well as schools in the United States — due to its subject matter, which included excessive amateur cursing and harsh language. Several high school teachers in the United States were fired or forced to quit in the 1970s after teaching the book.

51. An angry Karen once counted all the swear words in The Catcher in the Rye

According to one angry parent’s tabulation, the book featured 237 mentions of “goddamn,” 58 uses of “bastard,” 31 “Chrissakes,” and one incident of flatulence. After all, Holden Caulfield was 16, not 6.

52. Is there a sequel to The Catcher in the Rye?

There was a leaked prequel to The Catcher in the Rye. J.D. Salinger’s novel The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls was supposed to be published in Harper’s Bazaar in 1949 — two years before The Catcher in the Rye — but he chose to cancel the novel before it could be published for unknown reason. The tale was a prelude to The Catcher in the Rye, and it was about Holden’s older brother’s death. It was eventually donated to Princeton on the condition that it will not be released until 50 years following Salinger’s death, but it was leaked and uploaded on the internet in 2013, along with two additional stories.

53. The Catcher in the Rye has had a very dark fanbase

Many people know that John Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman, was infatuated with The Catcher in the Rye. “The reason I killed John Lennon was to promote the reading of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye,” he once declared in a statement. When John Hinckley Jr. shot Ronald Reagan in 1981, police discovered a copy of the novel in his apartment. Years later, when Robert John Bardo murdered actress Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989, he was caught with a copy of the book when he was arrested.

54. When did J.D. Salinger publish Nine Stories?

In 1953, J.D. Salinger published a collection of seven stories from The New Yorker, as well as two stories that were rejected by the magazine. Nine Stories received positive reviews and was a commercial success, spending three months on the New York Times bestseller list.

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55. J.D. Salinger refused to allow the illustration of Nine Stories on its dust jacket

Ever the control artist, J.D. Salinger forbade the collection’s publishers from depicting his characters in dust jacket drawings, fearing that readers would create preconceived ideas about them.

56. When was Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger published?

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger was published by Little, Brown and Company in July 1961. Like Salinger’s other works, reviews were mixed but the book was a runaway bestseller, spending 26 weeks at #1 on the New York Times fiction bestsellers list.

Click on the glass house to buy Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger!

Death & Legacy of J.D. Salinger

57. When did J.D. Salinger die?

On January 27, 2010, J.D. Salinger died of natural causes at his home in New Hampshire. He was 91 years old. Salinger had injured his hip in May 2009, although his literary representative informed The New York Times that “his health had been excellent until a rather sudden decline after the new year.”

58. J.D. Salinger outlived the man who wrote his obituary

J.D. Salinger lived to be 91 years old, and some of his obituaries were written years ahead of time and stored in a filing cabinet somewhere till the writer’s death was announced. In 2010, a scholar, Mark Krupnick, published an obituary for J.D. Salinger in The Guardian, despite the fact that he had been deceased for seven years.

59. Was Field of Dreams based on J.D. Salinger?

Many of us are very familiar with Field of Dreams, the 1989 baseball film starring Kevin Costner. In it, James Earl Jones plays a reclusive writer who once wrote a generation-defining book. If that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a fictionalized version of J.D. Salinger, who himself was fictionalized in W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe, the book Field of Dreams is based on. And like the movie where Kevin Costner chases down James Earl Jones partly because the latter once used the former’s name in a story, Kinsella is the indeed name of a character in The Catcher in the Rye. 

Final Thoughts on J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger is still remembered for his only published novel, The Catcher in the Rye, which has served as a sort of spokesperson for pretty much every generation since its publication in 1961. Salinger changed literature by taking teenagers seriously and helping them to understand themselves. He portrayed the world of adolescence as diverse, original, and marvelously complex — and deserving of love, protection, and empathy. Over the years, though, his reclusive nature, decision to stop publishing and problematic relationships with (much much) younger women eroded his legacy.

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Want to learn more fascinating facts about more of your favorite literary superstars? Check out our lists on Nathaniel Hawthorne, Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, Philip K. Dick, and Mary Shelley.

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