Salinger, J. D.

As a girl, I loved reading anything by J. D. Salinger: Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey, and Nine Stories were my favorites. I loved, loved, loved reading about the Glass family - especially Seymour. I was enraptured. It was because of Mr. Salinger that I, a Christian girl, skulked around the Buddhist portion of the religion aisle at the library, hiding from my father my research into the Bhagavad Gita.

An old friend who remembered my girlish passion for Catcher in the Rye laughed when he heard I had named my daughter Allie (thinking it was after Holden's Caulfield's brother in Catcher in the Rye), but the real story is that I begged my husband to let me name our first son Waker - after Waker Glass in "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut". (I do not currently have a son named Waker.)

While researching ole J. D. for my term paper (because that was gonna happen), I found he had written magazine installments chronicling the lives of the fictional Glass family I so adored - articles never published in book form. Gasp and haw and retch. So, I had an old magazine sent up from the bowels of the library.

I honestly intended to copy each page of that article, but I ran out of coins for the copier, and was left with no choice.

It's in my old brown suitcase as I write, torn from the magazine I sent back to the reference room as if it were still pristine. It's not that I'm not ashamed, but............

Mark David Chapman would understand.