Jerome David (J.D) Salinger, nicknamed “Sonny” during his childhood, was born on January 1st, 1919 in the city and state of New York. He was a very famous and polemic writter, that wrote many important literary books including the big success "The Catcher in The Rye". During his professional career many of the books he wrote, along with his big success, were also about being a teenager and growing up. Understanding Salinger as an adult and his behaviour is very difficult, as he was a very complex person. Due to the fact that he always wrote about being a teenager and all, one very clever way to understand his toughts is to look at his own teen social graces and childhood, that reflected on how he behaved as an adult and on the way he saw the …show more content…
His parents tried to make him interested in the import buisness but did not suceed. The rebelious instinct that came from inside was more appealing. He returned to school at Ursinus College, in Collegetown, Pennsylvania, in 1938, where he wrote a column called “Skipped Diploma” for the college’s newspaper. The things he wrote about went from humor and satire to film reviews. In 1939, at age 20, Salinger began to take a short story writing course at Columbia University taught by Whit Burnett. Salinger was very greatful to his teacher, as he published a tribute to the man in Fiction Writers’ Hand-book in 1975.
Something very interesting to point out is that the story and life of Holden Caulfield (main caracter of "The Catcher in the Rye") is very simillar to the author’s personal childhood. An example to that is the fact that Salinger was sent to a boys preparatory school (McBurney), just like Holden. Also, the school Sallinger attended later (Valley Forge Military Academy, in Wayne) served as an inspiration for Caulfield’s school, whereas the layout of the boy’s dorms in the story were simillar to the dorms in his school and the names of his coleagues were also used as a source of inspiration for Holden’s friends