Auchincloss & Salinger

I suppose J. D. Salinger's death this past week received appropriate attention. After all, he was certainly a best-selling author and his decades-long life as a recluse in rural New Hampshire was enough to pique the interest of most literary critics and reporters.

Reading his most popular novel, The Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951, became a rite of passage of sorts for teenagers during the past half-century. I suppose I was 17 or 18 when I read the book and, unlike most of my friends, was not particularly impressed. And I certainly didn't experience much of a connection with his character, the troubled and alienated Holden Caulfield. But apparently most folks my age (65) disagree and closely identified with this rather odd teenager.

Now that Salinger has died we will no doubt be subjected to a whole new wave of criticism and speculation about the man and his works. And I suspect all those rumors about a stack of unpublished novels locked up in a safe in his home will just increase in the months ahead. All very interesting.

But lost in all the publicity surrounding Salinger's death was the death of another novelist, Louis Auchincless, who passed away last Tuesday at the age of 92. I've read only three or four of Auchincloss' many published novels, but enjoyed them all and always intended to read more. Perhaps now I will. His novels, mostly about wealthy New Yorkers, are wonderfully entertaining and offer a glimpse into one side of New York life that most of us will never experience. He was also a remarkable good writer. For an excellent overview of Auchincloss and his fiction, read Christopher Caldwell's review first published in the Weekly Standard in 2002: Louis Auchincloss.

You can view an excellent 1997 interview of Auchincloss by Charlie Rose below. The first part of the video is a conversation with filmmaker Curtis Hanson about his film "L.A. Confidential. It is followed by the Auchincloss interview. To go directly to the Auchincloss interview, go to the 24th minute of the video.