Passage III

HUMANITIES: Passage A is adapted from the article “Dear Jerry: My adventures answering J. D. Salinger’s mail” by Joanna Smith Rakoff (@2010 by Washingtonpost. Newsweek Interactive Co LLC). Passage B is adapted from the article “Betraying Salinger” by Roger Lathbury (@2010 by New York Magazine Holdings LLC).

Passaae A by Joanna Smith Rakoff

I knew, I suppose, that Salinger was a recluse, but I didn’t understand the extent of his removal from society, in general, and the realms of literature and publishing, specifically. Nor did I understand—naive as this sounds—the cultlike devotion of his fans.

At Harold Ober Associates, a literary agency, we were Salinger’s gatekeepers—charged with protecting his life and work. We had to believe that Salinger’s privacy was the most important thing in the world, to be protected at all costs.

During my first months on the job, Salinger remained a comfortably abstract concept. Then, in June, he called, anxious to speak to Phyllis Westberg, the company’s president. My stomach lurched a little when I realized that it was Salinger, for real, on the other end of the phone.

It turned out something momentous was afoot in Salingerland: Eight years earlier, a small publisher in Alexandria, Virginia, had written to him, asking whether they might put out a book consisting solely of Salinger’s novella Hapworth 16, 1924, which had appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1965. To the shock of Phyllis, Salinger had, after years of thought, decided that this “fellow in Virginia” could publish Hapworth. Suddenly, he was calling all the time, anxious about the details of this new deal, which seemed like it might mark a tentative reentry into the world he’d abandoned 30 years earlier. Ober, just as suddenly, seemed charged with a frenetic energy. Phyllis bustled around the office and had long conversations with Salinger, going over the details of the new book, from the cloth of the binding to the font to the paper stock. She asked him about the publisher, a retired professor, whom Salinger seemed to like very much, to Phyllis’ surprise. It was not often, I supposed, that Salinger took a shine to someone new. In a way, I realized, the Virginia publisher was simply one of the fans whose letters I fielded, one who had managed to break through the wall of Ober’s protectorate and prove to Salinger that, yes, they really were kindred spirits.

The Hapworth book never materialized. The publisher gave an interview about Salinger to a local magazine, and Salinger decided his new friend was a phony after all.

Passage B by Roger Lathbury

It was 1988, and I had written to J. D. Salinger with a proposal: I wanted my tiny Virginia publishing house, Orchises Press, to publish his novella Hapworth 16, 1924. And Salinger himself had improbably written in reply, saying that he would consider it. I was ecstatic, even if I doubted that he’d proceed. And then, silence.

Eight years went by. In May of 1996, I received a letter from Phyllis Westberg saying that Mr. Salinger would soon write to me.

Why had he said yes? I think he chose me because I didn’t chase him. I had left him alone for eight years; I wasn’t pushy in the commercial way he found offensive.

Two weeks later, a full-page letter arrived, and it took my breath away. Chatty, personal, it expressed Salinger’s high pleasure in finding a way to put out Hapworth.

Well into discussions about the deal, I unwittingly made the first move that would unravel the whole thing. I applied for Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data.

It sounds innocent. CIP data are the information printed on the copyright page. The filings are public information, but I didn’t imagine that anyone would notice one among thousands.

Then I made another, bigger mistake. What I know now, but did not then, was that CIP listings are not only public but also appear on Amazon.com. Someone spotted Hapworth there, and his sister was a reporter for a local paper in Arlington. She telephoned.

It seems clear now how everything happened. She asked me basic questions. Foolishly—if reasonably—I answered most of them. I thought I could control myself, but my ego came into play. Anyway, what harm could it do? This was a tiny paper.

Then someone at The Washington Post saw it and called. I refused to speak at first, then answered a few questions, nervously.

After the story appeared in the Post, my phone nearly exploded. Newspapers, magazines, television stations, book distributors, strangers, foreign publishers, movie people. South Africa, Catalonia, Australia. The only one who didn’t call me was Salinger. I couldn’t proceed without him, because we still had too many details unsettled.

I yearned to write to Salinger, but I knew that it would do no good. He must have been furious with me, for betraying him by leaking news to the press, or even confirming it. I could no longer be trusted. I had proven myself part of the crass, opportunistic world that Salinger’s heroes disdain.