IfCatcher in the Ryeauthor J.D.
Salerno explains how he found this photo and what it means.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did you find this photo?
Why have we never seen it?
No other book about Salinger has a photograph of him during the war.
Salinger was such a deeply private man that it took years to secure the participation of the people involved.
Where was the photo taken?
Why is this a pivotal moment in Salingers life?
Hemingway expressed his admiration for Salinger as a soldier and writer.
This photo captures Salinger during and just before two of the seminal moments of his life.
Do you think this moment factored into his later work?
There were two emphatic demarcation points in Salingers life and World War II was the first.
The war destroyed Salinger the man but created a great artist.
All of the work that we know and celebrate Salinger for was written after the war.
In the horrors of war Salinger found his voice, his post-traumatic tone.
He never before had really written full out about either love or squalor.
From 1946 untill he stopped publishing in 1965 he would write about nothing else.
