Unauthorised Catcher in the Rye Sequel by Debut Novelist

The last we saw of Holden Caulfield, he was in a mental hospital in California, reminiscing about the days he spent roaming New York City, watching his sister Phoebe ride a carousel. Now JD Salinger‘s much-loved teenage misanthrope is back, thanks to an unauthorised sequel to The Catcher in the Rye, which sees a 76-year-old “Mr C” flee a nursing home to journey again through the streets of New York.

“I open my eyes and, just like that, I’m awake,” is the opening line of Swedish American writer John David California’s 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, just out from tiny publisher Windupbird Publishing.

“Just like the first novel, he leaves, but this time he’s not at a prep school, he’s at a retirement home in upstate New York,” said California.

California said he was moved to write the book – his first – because he’d “always wondered what happened to [Caulfield] … he deserves to have another life than just his 16 years”. He’d tried, he added, to be “very respectful” to both Caulfield and Salinger’s status as “American icons”. “I thought about it and tried to handle it very delicately. I like the story and Holden and I wanted to keep it respectful.”

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