Monday, February 22, 2010

Red marks, blue marks (J.D. Salinger)

Is there work from J.D. Salinger to come? His daughter, writing of her father’s house:

Though I’ve visited his house for more than thirty years now, I’ve never seen his closet or his bathroom. His bedroom, bath, and study are in an L off the kitchen. The door is kept locked. I’ve been invited inside maybe two or three times in my life when he wanted to show me something in his study. Once it was some new bookshelves he was thrilled with. Another time to show me a new filing system he had thought up for the material in one of his safes. A red mark meant, if I die before I finish my work, publish this “as is,” blue meant publish but edit first, and so on.

Margaret A. Salinger, Dream Catcher: A Memoir (New York: Washington Square Press, 2000), 307.

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