Re: Newbie

Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Sun, 21 Nov 1999 14:11:21 -0500

At 5:32 PM +1100 on 11/19/1999, you wrote:

> I've always heard how corny the photo on the first American edition was.
> What did it look like?

Ironically, it was an illustration by one of the foremost American 
paperback designers of the time, James Avati, who was a hot commodity 
at the time.  Salinger, it is said, blew his stack when he saw it -- 
perhaps a tad too literal for him or too tawdry. I don't know, and 
since he's not talking, I can't really guess.  I know only that he 
loathed it.

It showed an innocent boy with a suitcase that had travel stickers on 
it, in what looks like an imaginary part of Times Square, with peep 
shows and a newsstand and lots of people, and he looks lost amidst 
the crowd.

(I have always been entranced by paperback art, lurid or not, and, as 
luck would have it, my brother's wife is the James Avati of the 1980s 
and 90s, so I have a vested interest in following the field and its 
trends.)

You can read more about Avati at:

http://www.ils.unc.edu/rarebooks/avati.html

and see the original Catcher paperback cover at:

http://scam.com/avati.html

Ironically, Avati was born about five minutes from where I'm living 
right now.  And sadly, he's in his late 80s and suffering from 
macular degeneration, which for a visual artist is akin to a runner 
losing his legs or a writer the part of the brain where her words 
originate.  Life is cruel that way, eh?

--tim o'connor