[Bananafish] Salinger article in Toronto Star

[Daniel Moore]

http://www.thestar.com/Life/article/204732

Pull quotes:
"Some night soon, the literary heavens will explode with a supernova
unlike anything since the era of Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

Deep in the woods of Cornish, N.H., author J.D. Salinger, now 88, will
die a grumpy old man and a vault, containing his many unpublished
works, will magically open to the public he shut out of his life four
decades ago. His fictional characters will finally escape onto the
literary landscape."

"Toronto resident Clifford Church wonders about Salinger's new books.

[...] Or, as Salinger's relatives have reported, are there new
stories, including a screenplay and an epic romance set in World War
II? Chances are that Salinger's seductive, often-cynical prose will be
heralded by yet another generation of young people and find a place in
school curriculum like Catcher, once banned because it has the word
goddamn 252 times.

As a young man in the 1970s, Church wore trench coats and blew smoke
down his nose like Caulfield, and drove 450 miles for a rendezvous
with the author, who emphatically told him he was not a guru and that
none of his writings were autobiographical. But Church – and
practically none of the critics – believe the self-absorbed Salinger,
who set himself up as a Pied Piper to innocent children, ready to
catch them when they fell into the perils of adulthood.

With a sour face, Salinger told Church he quit publishing because it
was an invasion of his privacy and he was sick of writers, psychiatric
patients and disillusioned others flocking to him for advice, but that
he continued to write."

I try not to think about the idea of Salinger's unpublished writings
getting released after his death. In fact, so as to avoid inevitable
disappointment, I have long assumed the worst: we're gonna get
nothing! But I'll take that "epic World War II romance", thanks.

Regards,
Dan