Silly Walks on the Mild Side, or, More Preppy Twits of 1951

Synopsule. Rich kid gets beat up by a pimp in New York City. J. D. Salinger hides his face for sixty years, then dies.

Holden Caulfield was a goddam riff on Woodrow Wilson.

The intellectuals in my high school were reading The Stranger and Nausea or maybe (if they were lame enough) On the Road and Old Man and the Sea — stuff with some relevance to the Atomic Age and our private beatnik apocalypso. Caulfield Lite is Chevie Chase, at best. Salinger is dead. He always was. End obituary.