Essay on J. D. Salinger Biography

Submitted By fernandezros
Words: 551
Pages: 3

J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger was born on January 1, 1919 in New York City. His real name was Jerome David Salinger also known as Sonny as a child. His parents were Miriam and Sol Salinger. His mother was Christian and his father was Jewish. During this time mixed marriages of this kind were looked down on. He was the youngest of two children and the only boy. As a child Salinger flunked out of the McBurney School and was sent out by his parents to Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania. After graduating military academy, he returned and attended NYU for about a year. After that he headed off to Europe. After spending five months in Vienna, Salinger returned home and made another attempt at college. He enrolled in Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, and later returned to New York and started taking night classes at Columbia University. When his career started to take off it was interrupted by World War II. Salinger was drafted into the army after the Pearl Harbor attack. He served from 1942-1944. However, even during this time he continued to write composing a novel about a teen named Holden Caulfield. After the war ended, Salinger was hospitalized after suffering a nervous breakdown. While undergoing care at the hospital he met a German woman named Syliva. The two got married but only lasted eight months. When Salinger returned to New York he resumed his life as a writer and had his work published in The New Yorker. Finally in 1951 The Catcher in the Rye was published. Over time the book became a part of the high school literature curriculum. Up until today the book has sold over 120 million copies worldwide. Something interesting was that Mark David Chapman, the man responsible for assassinating John Lennon was found with a copy The Catcher in the Rye at the time of his arrest and explained that reason for the shooting could be found in the book's pages. Salinger married a second time in 1955 to Claire Douglas. The couple lasted quite a while and had two