1919 -

Born Jerome David Salinger on January 1, 1919, this American author is best known for the classic novel The Catcher in the Rye published in 1951. Born in Manhattan, New York to a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother, Salinger attended public schools on the West Side, later McBruney, a private school and then entered Valley Forge Military Academy. He dropped out of NYU his freshman year to work on a cruise ship and ended up in Vienna. In 1942 Salinger was drafted into the army during World War II where he saw combat with the US 4th Infantry Division in some of the fiercest fighting of the war, including landing on Utah Beach on D-Day and in the Battle of the Bulge. After the defeat of Germany, he became heavily involved in "de-Nazification". Among those Nazis he arrested was a low-level official, Sylvia, whom he married and brought back to the States. The marriage fell apart after a few months and Sylvia returned to Germany. By 1948, with the publication of a critically acclaimed short story entitled "A Perfect Day Bananafish", Salinger began to publish for The New Yorker. All but one of the Glass family stories were first published in The New Yorker. In "Down at the Dinghy", 1949, we meet Boo Boo (Beatrice), probably the most normal of the siblings.

A Perfect Day for Bananafish (1953) by J.D. Salinger

Originally published by New Yorker 1949

A Perfect Day for Bananafish first appeared in the January 31, 1948 issue of the New Yorker and was collected as the first piece in Nine Stories published in 1953.  It is Salinger’s first story to center around the fictional Glass family, whose members figure in much of his work such as Down at the Dinghy (1949), Franny and Zooey (1961), and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963).  Seymour, the oldest of the Glass children, is the main character in one of Salinger’s most elusive writings. The reader of "Bananafish" learns that Seymour, much like Salinger himself, is a veteran of World War II and has had trouble adjusting to postwar civilian life—an understandable problem that thousands of soldiers have to face.  The story's final paragraph shocks most readers and then leaves them scratching their heads.  Some readers find Seymour's wife, Muriel, partially to blame for her husband’s demise.  Others view Seymour as something of a guru, a man wise enough to escape from a corrupt world.  Also plausible is the idea that Seymour is so like his gluttonous bananafish that he can no longer cope. Multiple interpretations continue to be debated and disputed by professional critics and casual fans alike. Regardless of what specific motives are given to Seymour's actions, A Perfect Day for Bananafish is rife with Salinger’s elaborate games of symbols, colors, and other indirect means of storytelling. Muriel & Mother Sybil & Seymore Sybil with Ms C & Ms H

Truman Capote
1924 – 1984

Truman Capote, born Truman Streckfus Persons on Sept. 30, 1924 in New Orleans, Louisiana, was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. When his mother, Lillie Mae, married Joseph Garcia Capote in 1933, Truman adopted his stepfather’s surname.  He attended school in New York City and later in Greenwich, Connecticut.  After graduating at 17, he went to New Orleans, then to New York City to write and work.
In 1945 his stories began to appear in magazines and won two prizes. His first books were Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), a novel about an adolescent boy in a run-down Southern mansion, and A Tree of Night (1949), a collection of short stories.  Capote wrote House of Flowers in the early 1950’s, which he expanded into a musical comedy in 1954. Breakfast at Tiffany's, a short novel written in 1958, was well received, and made into a movie in 1961. In 1966 a television presentation of his short story A Christmas Memory won a Peabody award.
Capote is best known for his obsession with the brutal murder of a Kansas farm family.  He dedicated several years to digging up the facts, talking to everyone connected with the killing.  In 1966 he published In Cold Blood, which was based on fact but read like suspense fiction.  It was immensely popular and in 1967 was made into a motion picture.  In 1996 the film was adapted into a mini-series.  His experiences writing this “nonfiction novel” were also adapted into two films, Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006).  Truman Capote died in Los Angeles, California, on Aug. 25, 1984.

House of Flowers (1950) by Truman Capote

In the early 1950’s, Truman Capote wrote this short story about the ladies of a bordello in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The story centers around Ottilie, an orphaned native girl taken in at the bordello at a young age.  Ottilie becomes restless and seeks love but does not know how to recognize it, as she has never experienced it. She is provided many riches from an American engineer, Mr. Jamison, and from her other gentlemen callers but still she is restless.  Ottilie goes to the village Houngan, a spiritual leader in the religion of Vodou, to seek advice.  He tells her that she must catch a wild bee and if it does not sting her then she will know she is in love.  During Carnival, Ottilie and her friends gather with other villagers at the local cockfight.  There, she meets and falls in love with a poor mountain boy, Royal Bonaparte.  Royal lives with his grandmother, Old Bonaparte who is much respected as a maker of spells, and who tries to put a spell on her grandson’s new bride. What follows is a love story that symbolizes the choices we make in life. Family Three Ladies Ottilie & Royal Royal & Juno O & OB