TLS signed “Jerry,” two pages, 5.5 x 8.5, August 9, 1982. Salinger writes to Janet [Eagleson], a friend and sometime houseguest at his New Hampshire home. In part: “The more I age, senesce, the more convinced I am that our chances of getting through to any intact sets of reasons for the way things go are nil. Oh, we’re allowed any number of comically solemn assessments—the burning of ‘Rosebud’ the adored sled, or, no less signally, the burning of the new governess’s backside—but all real clues to our preferences, stopgaps, arrivals, departures, etc. remain endlessly hidden. The only valid datum, anywhere, I suspect, is the one the few gnanis [practicioners of Gnani yoga, aka “yoga of wisdom”] adamantly put forward: that we’re not who or what we thing [sic] we are, not persons at all, but susceptible to myriad penalties for thinking we’re persons and minds…. As for Sarah [Eagleson’s daughter] I don’t think I want to be around when or if that proud kid is ever tipped off, eight or ten or twenty years from now, that she was once callow enough to use a vogue word like ‘challenge’ in reference to anything, let alone some damn school…. Interesting, and probably very good, as things go, about your distributorships—the nutritional stuff, I mean. It may only be a dream body, but it seems to me a good idea to feed it the best dream food…. I’m o.k., I think, and so is Matthew [Salinger’s son], thanks for asking. He’s in California, at the moment. Talking to actors’ agents, etc. My other kid, Peggy, is off to Oxford for two years, on some sort of academic scholarship. She and her mother are looking rather exalted about it. Exemplary achievers, both of them, mother and daughter. I agree with you, of course, about the No Nukes bunch. Quiche and Volvo liberals, right. Liberals all, shitheads mostly, I agree absolutely. Pious champions of the new Ethnicity. Pass out recorders, bumper stickers, signed photographs of Lauren Bacall’s cousin’s attorney in small plastic buttons. Busy bringing in firewood. Had a good garden this year. Planted a lot of kale and collard greens, which aren’t all that delicious, really, but are innocuous enough in soups, stews, and flourish right through until snow covers the row. Brussel [sic] sprouts, too. Suitable for undesirable English guests. I’m in the middle of some legal action, irritating and wearing, and probably hopeless. Meaning that no sooner is one opportunist and parasite dealt with than the next guy turns up. Some prick took out a whole page ad in the Sunday Times Book Section, pretending it was me or my doing. It, too, shall pass, no doubt, as Louis B. Mayer once said, but it would be nice to know when.”
Both pages are dramatically double-matted and framed (by removable corner tabs) with a portrait of Salinger and many artistic extras, a photo of the cover Catcher In The Rye, and a biographical plaque, to an overall size of 38.5 x 25. In fine, clean, bright condition.
The “legal action” Salinger refers to stemmed from a claim by journalist Stephen Kunes that he had conducted an interview with Salinger—which, naturally, never took place. Kunes attempted to peddle the fictional interview to People magazine, whereupon Salinger sued him for “a variety of fraudulent activities in which [Kunes] impersonated [Salinger] and passed off his own writings as those of the plaintiff....” An agreement was finally reached wherein Salinger withdrew the suit on the condition that Kunes be permanently enjoined from representing any sort of association with the author. Though Salinger’s literary activities following his withdrawal from public life in the early 1960s remained shrouded in mystery, many of the interests he reveals in the letter—among them Eastern philosophy, nutrition, film—have been well documented. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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