Chasing Salinger, Losing Youth

Matt Welch | January 29, 2010

Over at The Daily Caller, former Reason intern Mike Riggs writes poignantly about his successful quest to find J.D. Salinger's house a few years back. Sample:

The rest of the pilgrimage was spent smoking pot, listening to good tunes, and playing a game we created called the Salinger Hypothetical, which one of us would start when the others were feeling like the trip was a waste of time.

Working off the trivia we knew about Salinger — the pee-drinking, the refusal to evacuate his home during a massive fire, the regular visits to Friendly's for ice cream, the obsession with young women, the interest in homeopathic medicine — we psyched ourselves out by creating even stranger Salingers. Every sentence began with, "What if Salinger" and ended in an absurd theory: What if Salinger hasn't cut his fingernails in 50 years? What if Salinger's home is staffed by Southeast Asian slave labor? What if Salinger answers the door in a dress? What if Salinger has been dead for years, and his wife too, and no one knows because he's a recluse? What if Salinger answers the door in a Marilyn Monroe wig? What if Salinger is a huge pothead? What if Salinger answers the door naked? What if Salinger doesn't remember having been a famous writer? [...]

From the row of trees that surrounded Salinger's house, you could look down a grassy slope and see nothing but trees for miles. The mailbox out front had a lock on it, unlike the other homes on the mountain, and the entrance to the driveway was plastered with signs that read "NO TRESPASSING" and "NO LOITERING."

From the road, we spotted a SUV with a Cornish Fire Department bumper sticker — had Salinger or his wife put it on the car after the fire in the late '90s that almost destroyed the house? And was that an herb garden near the front door? The tension was so palpable that Brian and Matt broke out the weed and we smoked another joint to steady our nerves.

"Are you going to knock?" Matt asked me after we'd had a few hits.

Click here for the REST of the story; the GQ version has pictures. Riggs' Reason archive here.

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The Gobbler|1.29.10 @ 3:39PM|#

"The rest of the pilgrimage was spent smoking pot"

What??? You don't drug test your interns?

Suki|1.29.10 @ 3:46PM|#

Of course they do. The test is if they can hold their smoke half as long as Jesse.

Suki|1.29.10 @ 3:45PM|#

What if Salinger's home is staffed by Southeast Asian slave labor?

I knew I needed to stay away from Riggs and Salinger if I valued my freedom.

|1.29.10 @ 3:54PM|#

Ah. Now we know who is responsible for the spam filter.

affenkopf|1.29.10 @ 4:02PM|#

...and threaded comments.

Johnny Longtorso|1.29.10 @ 5:00PM|#

No kidding

John Tagliaferro|1.29.10 @ 10:56PM|#

This damn thread and the spam filter is driving me mad! Squirrel is anti Lobster Girl.

|1.29.10 @ 4:16PM|#

The fact that the writer mentioned that he smoked pot multiple times in the article really added to the story.

So much so that without the constant reminders of "taking hits" I would have grown bored with the story.

Pot smoking really is one of the most interesting things to read about in the whole world.

|1.30.10 @ 4:35AM|#

I see what you did there.

I Heart Capitalisms|1.30.10 @ 9:11PM|#

Stoned college students showing up at Old Man Salinger's front door IS pretty funny.

|1.29.10 @ 4:17PM|#

I admit I haven't RTFA'd, but I wonder whether Matt Welch is the stoner Matt of the article.

Hacha Cha|1.29.10 @ 5:15PM|#

I wondered that too

BakedPenguin|1.29.10 @ 6:24PM|#

Didn't Riggs say he was a college buddy? Since Welch is pushing 40 or so, I doubt it's the same guy.

John Tagliaferro|1.29.10 @ 8:36PM|#

I didn't wonder. Just figured they met during one of Matt's PhD's in Journalism somewhere.

Mike M.|1.29.10 @ 4:21PM|#

Excellent article. There's something about that flinty rural New England attitude I admire.

Stephen King has it too. In one of his books, he basically says in the intro "Fans, please don't come looking for my house; I don't want to know you, and if you want to know me you can do so through my work".

|1.29.10 @ 9:29PM|#

Stephen King sucks.

John Tagliaferro|1.29.10 @ 10:50PM|#

You really are still alive bitching about other writers? Amazing!

|1.30.10 @ 4:09AM|#

Stephen King is an author like a monkey is a shit sculptor.

Hacha Cha|1.29.10 @ 5:14PM|#

what a pussy he goes all the way there and then gets too scared to knock on the damn door.

John Tagliaferro|1.29.10 @ 8:37PM|#

Like a stoner watching "Are You Afraid of the Dark"?

JSinAZ|1.29.10 @ 9:05PM|#

He probably flashed on Thompson and thought about a big shiny .44 pointed through the door, waiting for the ring (those signs)...

I know I would if I were him!

Mr Barack Hussein Obama|1.29.10 @ 5:17PM|#

It is Bush's fault that Salinger is dead.

John Tagliaferro|1.29.10 @ 10:58PM|#

Rove killed him to give Jeb Bush a shot at the White House.

|1.29.10 @ 5:32PM|#

Salinger. You'll be missed, sir.

John Tagliaferro|1.29.10 @ 11:01PM|#

By prissy Literature teachers who wish they were successful authors and secretly envy J. Edgar Hoover drag parties.

|1.30.10 @ 2:53PM|#

neither priss nor wistful author...but I am a Lit teacher. I am not sure I miss anyone when they are gone, save those precious few folks who touch my life in either romantic, filial, or amicable ways. I won't miss Salinger much at all, but I will give him credit for Catcher, and Franny and Zooey. "Bananafish" is a great story too. His stories never spelled anything out in perfect detail, leaving some things to be interpreted in the reader's own head, which [for me] is what all good lit should do.

Earlier, I lamented that most modern fiction sucks. It either simply tells stories (of varying quality - some are good) or spells everything out for the reader, so you are left without any doubts as to a character's feelings, motivations, actions, attitudes, or appearance. The writer dictates everything to you, leaving little, if any, moral ambiguity or anxiety to parse in comparison to your own experiences. I finally found the words to express all of my frustration at 21st century fiction at 3 a.m. today. I need to preserve this post for some future thoughts and writing.

cheers

|2.1.10 @ 2:39AM|#

Cuz of all those books he would have written otherwise...

RedBeardRum|1.29.10 @ 7:02PM|#

Why is an obsession with young women considered odd?

John Tagliaferro|1.29.10 @ 8:41PM|#

To each their own. I am considered odd by some for a prefrence for women older than me. Go figure.

JSinAZ|1.29.10 @ 9:10PM|#

Are we talking "Harold and Maude" kind of older? I did like the Jag, but the price...

John Tagliaferro|1.29.10 @ 10:49PM|#

I am in my 40s and prefer women in their 50s, well preserved ones in their 60s.

|1.31.10 @ 4:32PM|#

I am left to wonder if you like them because most of them are post-menopausal.

Joe Strummer "catcher" review|1.29.10 @ 7:58PM|#

"I don't want to hear about what the rich are doing"

John Tagliaferro|1.29.10 @ 8:42PM|#

Hey Joe!

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