New York library exhibit to pay tribute to JD Salinger

An upcoming exhibit at the New York Public Library will offer a look into the very private life of J.D. Salinger. From Oct. 18 to Jan 20, 2020, the library will show materials ranging from family photographs to letters to the original typescript for his classic “The Catcher in the Rye.” The exhibit is called “J.D. Salinger” and was organized by the library in partnership with the author’s widow, Colleen Salinger, and son, Matt Salinger. Matt Salinger said that while he plans to release his father’s unpublished writings at some point, the library will not be showing any unpublished material. 

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Continued writing but stopped publishing

J.D. Salinger, who died in 2010, published no books after the 1960s but continued to write during the following decades. Fans have long obsessed over what he had been working on. The exhibit will help mark the 100th anniversary of Salinger’s birth. In a statement Monday, Matt Salinger said that he hopes to lift “the veil a bit” on his famous father, whom he acknowledged avoided public scrutiny in his lifetime. “But I’ve learned that while he may have only fathered two children there are a great, great many readers out there who have their own rather profound relationships with him, through his work, and who have long wanted to get to know him better,” Matt Salinger said.

Last work appeared in 1965

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J.D. Salinger published just four books in his lifetime: “Nine Stories,” ″The Catcher in the Rye,” ″Franny and Zooey” and a volume with the two novellas “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.” The last work to come out in his lifetime was the story “Hapworth 16, 1924,” which appeared in The New Yorker in 1965. Salinger rarely spoke to the media and not only stopped releasing new work but rejected any reissues or e-book editions of his published material. This year marks the centennial of his birth and signs of a new openness emerged in 2018 when his estate permitted new covers and a boxed edition of his old fiction to come out for the 100th anniversary. A Salinger exhibit is planned later this year at the New York Public Library, and other promotional events are in the works.

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Rumours and speculations over new books

Over the past half-century, rumours and speculation intensified over if any new books existed and if they were of publishable quality. A former lover, Joyce Maynard, and Salinger’s daughter, Margaret, have both contended that the author continued to write books, allegedly stored in a vault in the author’s home in Cornish, New Hampshire. A 2013 documentary and book by Shane Salerno and David Shields cited two “independent and separate sources” in predicting five new works. One of the Salinger books would centre on “Catcher” protagonist Holden Caulfield and his family. Others would draw on Salinger’s World War II years and his immersion in Eastern religion. Matt Salinger has dismissed the contents of the Salerno-Shields project, but never definitively said that no new work would appear.

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