Catcher in the Rye Sequel: Actual Disaster or Lame Hoax?
The world needs a Catcher in the Rye sequel like it needs an asshole on its elbow. Well, since New Jersey exists, so too must the book. Some debut novelist has published an unauthorized sequel.
Every young man's favorite book from 1951-2001, J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is about the pre-Snark Era snarkster Holden Caulfield, a teen who finds nothing interesting about the world except how uninteresting it is. The sequel, horribly titled 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye (have you ever come through your rye? It burns), was written by Swedish-American first time writer John David California. Which has got to be a made-up name. If it's not, he's probably a secret superhero. The supposed California says of the book:
Just like the first novel, he leaves, but this time he's not at a prep school, he's at a retirement home in upstate New York. It's pretty much like the first book in that he roams around the city, inside himself and his past. He's still Holden Caulfield, and has a particular view on things. He can be tired, and he's disappointed in the goddamn world. He's older and wiser in a sense, but in another sense he doesn't have all the answers.
And, actually, we might be onto something with the whole fake name theory. Galleycat thinks that the entire thing is a joke, in the vein of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies or something. The book's publisher, Nicotext, claims that they publish works to "make you giggle."
Though a faux Catcher in the Rye hoax isn't really something we'd giggle about. Maybe an amused, annoyed chuckle. Maybe a snort. But really, probably nothing.