Shane Salerno Video Interview On ‘Salinger,’ ‘Catcher In The Rye’ Sequel

Director Shane Salerno offers an intimate look at J.D. Salinger in his documentary Salinger. The film reveals for the first time that Salinger wrote for almost half a century in self-imposed solitary confinement, producing four unpublished books, including a sequel to The Catcher In The Rye. “What he’s really been doing for all of these years of writing only for himself, locked away, is creating the story of these two extraordinary families, the Glass family and the Caulfield family,” Salerno told Uinterview exclusively. “Those are the masterworks for which we will know Salinger, and in the Caulfield case, that does include continuing some of the stories in The Catcher in the Rye.”

Salerno reveals that it was Salinger’s religion that inspired his decision to become a recluse. “J.D. Salinger had an extraordinary devotion to the Vedanta religion. In 1965, fulfilling the third tenant of his religion, withdraw from society, he left the world but kept writing for himself every day for 45 years.”

Salinger also relates the author’s obsession with young women, which Salerno explains resulted from falling in love with Oona O’Neill, daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill and future wife of screen legend Charlie Chaplin, as a teenager. “That relationship, which Salinger never recovered from, imprinted upon him a girl, not a woman, a girl at a very specific age, on the cusp of womanhood, and he was forever fascinated with girls at that age.”