The calculated trickle of information from the previously secretive upcoming book and documentary on J.D. Salinger (both called Salinger) has begun. According to director Shane Salerno and and writer David Shields, Salinger left directions to publish at least five new books after his 2010 death. The first of them could be released as early as 2015.
One of the new works, a story collection called The Family Glass, would add five new chapters to the history of the fictional Glass family, members of which appeared in Franny and Zooey and other Salinger material. A story long rumored to exist, “The Last and Best of the Peter Pans,” would be incorporated into another collection, this one chronicling the family of Catcher in the Rye protagonist Holden Caulfield. The other books are said to include a story-driven “manual” of the Vedanta religious philosophy, a World War II novel based on Salinger’s short marriage to Sylvia Welter, and a novella about his war experiences. Salerno says he learned of posthumous publishing arrangement from two “independent and separate” anonymous sources. Salinger’s son, Matthew, and widow, Colleen O’Neill, declined to comment on the supposed plan. This wouldn’t be the first time the public has been promised new work from Salinger, who is known to have written prolifically during the decades he spent in seclusion, but it certainly is the most detailed claim.
