Seeing Salinger

After the success of "Catcher in the Rye", J. D. Salinger began writing almost exclusively about a fictional family, the Glass siblings of New York City, from various narrative points of view. The sublime short books "Franny and Zooey" and "Seymour/Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters" were about the Glass children, and Salinger's most famous short story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" tells the chilling tale of Seymour Glass's suicide in a Florida hotel room. Most of these stories are fractured narratives containing reflections of reflections of the Glass children, usually related in dialogue and allegedly recorded by the mild, stealthy older brother, Buddy Glass.

A few months ago, writer Michael Norris and artist David Richardson began working together on a project to imagine the faces of the Glass family members. This represents a creative first, as far as we know, because no well-known film, play or art project has ever emerged to represent these characters. Michael and David previously illuminated Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" for Literary Kicks, and David Richardson drew the cover for "Beats In Time", the new Literary Kicks Beat Generation anthology..

Zooey Glass

It is his second shave. He will place the razor on the edge of the sink, it will fall into the basin, but with the grace that an inanimate object, a prop, can give to a well directed scene in a comedy of manners. It is a scene every actor longs to play, a scene few will ever play as well as Zooey. He is about to turn toward Bessie, he will ease up on her and look at her with love. He will sit in Seymour and Buddy’s room after he dresses, smoke cigars, read the once white beaver board of world literature quotations, and he will help Franny, and always shine his shoes for Seymour‘s Fat Lady.

In 1948, J.D. Salinger published the short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” in the New Yorker. This event was a major step in his literary career. First, it brought Salinger serious critical acclaim. Second, it established a working relationship between the author and The New Yorker. The magazine offered Salinger a right of first refusal contract, and he subsequently published his new work almost exclusively in the New Yorker. Third, it marks the first published appearance of Seymour Glass, the oldest sibling in the Glass family. Salinger would go on to chronicle the lives of the Glass family siblings in a series of short stories and novellas.

“Bananafish” is the only story in which Seymour appears in real time. In all the other stories he is either referred to, or described from a distance in time. Nevertheless, the spirit of Seymour pervades all of the stories, and is a constant presence in the thoughts of his younger brothers and sisters.

The "Bananafish" story (which became the opening story in Salinger's beloved collection Nine Stories) is a masterpiece of economy and style. Using mostly dialog to set the scene and give background on the main characters, Salinger presents the barest of facts, describes a series of events, and then lets the reader puzzle out the meaning and fill in his or her own perception of the characters. Salinger at this point in his life was a student of Zen Buddhism, and “Bananafish” is similar to a Zen koan, or riddle, in which a question is posed and the answer is found through meditation and self-examination.