American Author Proposal - J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger

I want to choose J.D. Salinger as my American Author. A reason I want to choose him is because when I already did my presentation on him, so I already have some sort of an idea of what he writes. I also want to choose him because when I went to the bookstore I read the first pages of his book Catcher In The Rye and I was immediately interested. I was strongly considering choosing Cormac McCarthy as my American Author but after browsing J.D. Salinger’s books I wasn’t as interested in McCarthy’s books as I was in Salinger’s. Although I probably will read some books by Cormac McCarthy in the future. I have also read a few synopsis’ of Salinger’s books and they all seem very interesting.
J.D. Salinger fits all of the criteria needed for the American Author project. Salinger has written a few books, one of them is Catcher In The Rye which is a novel, while the rest of his books are composed on mainly short stories put into one book (although they are usually related in some way) like his book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. He is American born and he is very well known in the United States. When Salinger released his first book Catcher In The Rye first came out it caused a lot of controversy especially with schools assigning it because of the books contents and use of language. My current reasoning for considering J.D. Salinger an American author is that he seems to have heavily influenced many people with his writing.
J.D. Salinger is mainly known for writing Catcher In The Rye and causing controversy with that book, but that controversy brought some change into american literature. He was willing to use words and talk about topics that most authors at the time felt they shouldn’t use or talk about. He is pretty widely known as an author, although he kept to himself as a person, but I think there is enough to write about his style of writing and everything he’s done.
As for reading, I plan to read Catcher In The Rye, Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, and Nine Stories. Catcher In The Rye is the book that caught my attention and led me to choose J.D. Salinger as my American Author so I want to start of with his most popular and well known book. Following that I want to read Nine Stories because I don’t really know much about it so it would be interesting to put it in between the two books I actually know about. I plan to end with Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction because I remember hearing some of what this book is about and I found it very interesting so I think it would be a good ending.
Overall I think choosing J.D. Salinger as my American Author is great because he is actually someone who I find interesting and I think I can actually get into his books. It may be sort of difficult to write about his personal life but when it comes to writing about him as an author and his writing I think I can do a good report on that.