Salinger

J. D. Salinger published The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, printed his last text in 1965, and lived in seclusion in New Hampshire for forty-five years until his death. This documentary tries to fill that gap: what he went through in the Second World War, his relationships with very young women, his going on writing while refusing to publish, and his fight with everyone who tried to reach him. Shane Salerno's film rests on nine years of research; wartime comrades, editors, journalists and Jean Miller, who was close to Salinger for a period, all speak. The narrative places his experience at the front, from the Normandy landings through the liberation of a camp, at the centre of his writing. The film claimed that Salinger left five works to be published after his death, appearing between 2015 and 2020. Those dates have passed and the works have not been published. Who it's for: Anyone interested in literary documentaries, the twentieth-century American novel, and writers who withdrew from public life. Who it's not for: The style is built like a thriller, and the music and reenactments sit heavily on the subject. Some of the claims are also not sufficiently sourced.