Sergeant Salinger

From treatises on ping-pong to biographies of Joe DiMaggio and Ernest Hemingway, Charyn (Once upon a Droshky; Bronx Boy: A Memoir) boasts a voluminous bibliography spanning genres. Here, Charyn pens a biographical novel about a reclusive author with a small but influential body of work: J.D. Salinger. The narrative unfolds across five years, from 1942 to 1947, following a young Sonny Salinger as he is drafted into World War II and witnesses unspeakable atrocities. From the sands of Utah Beach to the Battle of the Bulge, Sonny experiences the carnage of war while sketching the outlines of what would become his most famous novel. Returning home from war with a wife and compromised mental health, Sonny sees his life slowly unravel while his field notes and writings come together in the form of a novel and several short stories. Charyn deftly leaves the reader wondering whether Holden Caulfield’s teenage angst was really Salinger’s personification of post-traumatic stress disorder.