Re: Salinger, Dylan, and more Salinger

Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Wed, 09 Sep 1998 13:36:58 -0400 (EDT)

At 10:32 AM -0600 on 9/9/98, you wrote:

> One of my students came up with a fine question and I wonder if any
> bananafish know how Mr. Salinger supported himself from l946-l952.  He may
> have made enough on his short stories, and we can guess that catcher
> royalties have since kept the Salinger family alive in the style to which
> they've become accustomed, but I'm wondering how he handled money in his
> early days...most starting writers have a pretty hard time dealing with a
> livihood and writing...some like me take refuge in schools...but Mr.
> Salinger never taught for an income and I'm wondering...will

I recall reading (in A.E. Hotchner's memoir, CHOICE PEOPLE: THE GREATS,
NEAR GREATS AND INGRATES I HAVE KNOWN [1984]; also, to a lesser extent, a
1980s bio, by Elizabeth Frank, LOUISE BOGAN) casual portraits of Salinger
in his pre-flight-to-New-Hampshire period, when he was hanging around the
Village.  There were suggestions judged by his peers to be essentially
living off his parents, coming downtown to hang out in bars while living
comfortably uptown, but not acting the bohemian as much as wading in the
setting.  He would play cards, do all that regular-guy stuff.  It made him
seem an amiable young man.  Hotchner's memoir, as I recall it, was kind of
snotty, but it showed Salinger to be by no means an antisocial character.
I did get the impression that Hotchner kind of resented that Salinger took
himself seriously as a writer back then; it seemed to have a bit of
chest-thumping in the Hotchner account.

I've misplaced YET ANOTHER copy of my Hamilton biography 8-(, so I can't
even refer to that book's rough chronology....

--tim o'connor