By the looks of this blog, you might think we over here at Alstin eat, breathe and sleep all that is recruitment and retention. Every so often we’ll stray from the HR talk and bring you more on some of our favorite things, places and activities that also populate our daily lives.
As readers of my blogs know, I’m a big fan of great fiction (click here to read my link to my favorite novels of 2009). Certainly, one of the seminal novels of this century has been J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, first published in 1951. While popularity and critical acclaim of the novel seem to rise and fall with each generation, it’s generally regarded as a true masterwork and an American original. J.D. Salinger died last week at the age of 91.
Like many young readers, I first came across The Catcher in the Rye in high school. On the surface, I didn’t have a lot in common with Holden Caulfield, but at the time I, like many of the novel’s teenage readers, felt it was the first book that was truly about us. I know the novel’s theme is sometimes reduced to as “teen angst”–but I think there’s much more there, from Holden’s sardonic view of the world and adults, his desire to protect innocence, and his feelings of despair and detachment.
As famous as he was for The Catcher in the Rye and other works (including Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey, Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction), Salinger was even more renown for his desire to hide from the world.
Salinger said that he loved everything about writing but hated everything about publishing. He retreated to his home outside Cornish, NH where he was barely seen for half a century, shunning the attention so many people today would kill for.
While I can be as nosy and voyeuristic as the next guy, I always found this obsession with Salinger’s private life distasteful. Through the years, so many people in the media, as well as his fans, have found it necessary to question or ignore his simple, basic request to be left alone. It must seem even stranger to us today, as we live in an age where people will do literally anything (including humiliating themselves) to get noticed and “famous.” Reality TV, Facebook, YouTube: what would Salinger have made of all this? My feeling is that our obsession with penetrating Salinger’s privacy says more about us than it does about him.
In 1988 Ian Hamilton tried to write a biography of Salinger that would include previously unpublished letters. Salinger sued, and the quasi-book that remained after the whole mess is In Search of J.D.Salinger. It’s really a book about failing to write a book, and I think that overall, it’s a disappointment. I can’t imagine anyone reading it without thinking, “Just let the poor guy alone already.” Not much is revealed about Salinger we didn’t already know, including the old salacious rumors that had been circulating for decades, many of which don’t seem credible. Ironically, I read an interview in Time with Hamilton (who seems like a nice enough guy), and even he seemed strongly reluctant about exposing someone who just wanted to be left in peace.
So now Salinger is gone, but the obvious questions remain: Did he leave us scores of unpublished work stashed away somewhere? Did he write multiple novels, edit them to perfection and then burn them? Will we see in an upcoming New Yorker (where Salinger published nearly all his stories–including the classics “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “For Esme–with Love and Squalor”) a new work by Salinger?
Maybe we will, but I doubt it, and I think once the tributes, rumors and remembrances die down, we won’t hear much more about J.D. Salinger, except through the short but remarkable body of work he left us–which is probably the way he would have wanted it.
Author Bio:
Tony Rosato, Alstin's Vice President, Client Development, is the most well-traveled member of our team and one of the nicest guys we know. Sharing his 20 years of industry experience with prospective clients everywhere, Tony's Type A personality is powered by premium iced tea (but never chocolate). 
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