Salinger, An Introducion: J.D. SALINGER, ZOOEY GLASS, AND COMING OUT

Like many of us, I was first introduced to J.D. Salinger as a freshman in high school. On the recommendation of my older brother (or a friend who’d already made the discovery), I read “Catcher in the Rye” with rapt attention and the unwavering faith that I was going to absolutely love it. By then, 50+ years after its initial publication, “Catcher” had far surpassed its early cult status (it was censored and banned for decades) to become required reading for all teens, especially among those who floated on the fringes of high school society—perhaps closeted teens like me.

After all, there’s nothing a gay teen feels more acutely than the isolation from other kindred spirits, and nothing he or she desires more than to express singularly how different he or she feels.

I took refuge in Holden Caulfield’s mind where it was not only acceptable but also seemingly cool and fashionable to look down on one’s peers. It was necessary to critique and challenge the value and existence of others, because doing the opposite would threaten one’s individuality.

I pored over “Nine Stories,” but it was “Franny and Zooey” that cemented my love for Salinger. I felt like an entirely new world had opened up to me, and I wanted more than anything to inhabit it. In his novel and his stories Salinger created a class of misfits that were both admirable yet insufferable. For all their wit and aversion to social expectations, they remained weak due to their unwillingness (or inability) to navigate everyday life. They were elitists; sophisticated beyond belief, and acutely self-possessed yet remained isolated. In a word, I was them, they where me—or at least that’s what I thought at 15.

But I never clung to Holden Caulfield as much as I did Zooey Glass. Holden was a rebel and a troublemaker, but in Zooey I discovered a young man who felt at odds with society, one who’d learned how to play by the rules, all the while inventing his own.

As he counsels his baby sister Franny on how to survive, it’s almost as if he is speaking to us all, when he says, “An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.” I knew I could never be exactly what my parents, my teachers, or society in general wanted me to be. So, instead I had to find a way to be myself genuinely.

Authenticity always seemed like the driving concern of both Holden and Salinger. And in seeking that legitimacy they both made significant sacrifices. Holden resigned his sanity, (“Catcher” is narrated from a mental institution). Likewise, Salinger lived out his life in seclusion. If the belief that society will never understand or embrace us leads to insanity or seclusion, is there really a choice? For that reason—perhaps subconsciously—Salinger helped me to come out.

I picked up Salinger because his book was mandatory. I never thought that in doing so I’d discover the conviction to live my life honestly and courageously. Say what you will about Salinger’s cliché status among teens and the self-appointed literati, but we cling to his work because his books recall a pivotal time in many of our lives—a time from which we never hope to return, but love to revisit every now and then. Unfortunately, Salinger never escaped that time. The greatest gift he ever gave us was to withdraw. And in doing so he allowed many of us to emerge.

Appeared originally on Homo-Neurotic.com on 2/4/10