joe, beta

Jerome David Salinger was born in New York on Jan. 1, 1919. His mother was a Scots-born Protestant who changed her name from Marie to Miriam to accommodate her Jewish in-laws. His father Solomon was a food importer who was successful enough by the time Salinger turned 13 to move the family to Park Avenue and enroll his underachieving son in a Manhattan private school. Salinger flunked out within two years. He was then packed off to Valley Forge Military Academy, outside Philadelphia. It would later be the model for Pency Prep, the school Caulfield runs away from.

The Time Magazine article on their web site adds a colon and the phrase "The Hermit Crab of American Letters" to the title. I think that phrase, of all possible summations following Salinger's death, is a sad attempt to be clever where cleverness was not appropriate.

But the piece itself is as good a cheat-sheet as any for those of you who never looked deeper into the man behind the pen.

I'm sorry to see him go. I don't even know why exactly. I just am.