how to win the lottery s21e8 – the catcher in the rye by j.d. salinger

our un/adaptable season concludes with the catcher in the rye by j.d. salinger, which is cinematic, yet never adapted. (shreds explains why.) we talk about having not read this for a while… and, wow! what a book. shreds offers insight into salinger’s background (and his intentional choice to not write a war novel, as well as how that relates to kurt vonnegut’s experience re: slaughterhouse-five. we discuss catcher as a book about trauma (in many ways), its status as one of “the” high school books (and one of the most-banned books), and how it leads to so many books we love. joey talks about the sadness of holden’s (for lack of a better phrase) career aspiration. shreds laughs about phoebe’s single puff on a cigarette. we praise the novel’s willingness to introduce great characters and not return to them later. salinger defends digressions, and shreds defends salinger defending digressions. we ask: where’s the salinger vault?
reading list for season twenty-one
the odyssey by homer, translated by emily wilson
the sugar frosted nutsack by mark leyner
detransition, baby by torrey peters
antkind by charlie kaufman
the chain by adrian mckinty
your name here by helen dewitt and ilya gridneff
the memory police by yoko ogawa, translated by stephen snyder
the catcher in the rye by j.d. salinger
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