Âé¶¹app Professor Available to Discuss Salinger's Death, Literary Legacy

Thursday, January 28, 2010

DURHAM, N.H. - Thomas Payne, associate professor of English at the Âé¶¹app, is available to discuss the death of J.D. Salinger and his literary legacy. Salinger, 91, died Wednesday at his home in New Hampshire.
"When I have gotten together with fellow novelists, and the talkÌýturned to our literary influences, there is only one author we allÌýagreed on: J.D. Salinger," said Payne, assistant professor of English and author of the novel "The Pearl of Kuwait."

"WeÌýsay it sort of guiltily, like we had chocolate bars under our pillow. Maybe because he wrote about a disaffected teenager or maybe becauseÌýwe feel the love of our literary lives ought to be more of the species 'literarius rarus' in some way. But Salinger was greater than justÌýabout everyone in what he captured on the page with Holden Caulfield, who stood and stands always for all sensitive souls calling for aÌýsalve of meaning in a distracted modern world. We writers are all Holdens and are forever beholden to J.D. Salinger," Payne said.
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