While it's sad news that author J.D. Salinger passed away at the age of 91 this week -- partly because he said he was going to live to be 120, and partly (as someone tweeted today) because we all assumed he died decades ago -- I particularly enjoy the image NPR paints of him in their lead:
Jerome David Salinger retreated to a New Hampshire farmhouse in 1953, a few years after he published the high-school classic The Catcher in the Rye. And there he stayed, for the next 50-plus years, scowling at photographers who dared snap his picture.
I remember copying Salinger's short stories from microfiche in the VCU library during my college years, and that a friend of mine made plans to travel to Vermont in the hopes of seeing the old man shuffle down the drive to his mailbox.
It's going to be particularly interesting to see what new manuscripts might emerge from his estate in the years to come; he apparently wrote almost every day since he vanished from the public eye, and rumors of 15 book manuscripts in a safe abound.
