J.D. Salinger Turns 90

J.D. Salinger turns 90 tomorrow, but don’t expect a celebration: The Catcher in the Rye novelist hasn’t been heard from in more than 40 years. He lives in New Hampshire, but what he does there is anyone’s guess. Charles McGrath reads back over Salinger’s work and notes, “In general what has dated most in Mr. Salinger’s writing is not the prose…but the ideas …Mr. Salinger’s spiritual side is his least convincing. His gift is less for profundity than for observation, for listening and for comedy.”