<![CDATA[RealClearPolitics - Articles by John Wenke]]>http://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/?id=20164Author <![CDATA[The Salinger Effect: How He Won the World Over]]> Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600 It's been so long since J. D. Salinger was published that it's easy to forget his career as a fiction writer lasted from 1940 to 1965, a full quarter-century. His relatively slender output--22 uncollected stories, one short story collection, one major novel, two collections of four novellas--belies the powerful and divisive impact that Salinger has had on the nation's psyche, most notably through Holden Caulfield.

Published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye presents Holden's mesmerizing voice as he recounts his fractured homebound odyssey through Manhattan's Christmas-time frenzy. For the last 50 years Holden's story has become a celebratory anthem for legions of angst-ridden,...]]>