Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

Nine Stories is a book by J.D. Salinger with, shockingly, nine short stories. Each one is told with a really composed voice although nothing very significant or dramatic happens (with the exception of Bananafish, which Flynn gave his fiction class last semester), there definitely a feeling of unease and unrest in all of them. All involve very ordinary and real life characters. Salinger also spends a lot of time on dialogue, and it is what drives most of the stories. The clips of setting and thought he gives the reader seem immaterial, but add to the reality and show how simple the story is. One of my favorite stories is about two women in a middle-class setting who are catching up since they haven't seen each other since college. It's kind of interesting because it seems like they secretly hate each other, and don't bother being nice, but it's obvious they do mean something to the other. Neither one of them are nice people, but they aren't unordinarily awful... it's kind of amusing banter. It seems like all of the stories play with sarcasm a good bit too. I aspire to this wit.

Ella already told everyone about how reclusive Salinger, and essentially, that's all I can find about him too. He did get married, a couple of years after he published Nine Stories, and made his fiance drop out of college four months before she graduated. His daughter has published a memoir about how crazy her father was and his always trying to find a set of beliefs so he could lead a different life. Nine Stories was acutally published after Catcher in the Rye, but that was the last for almost a decade. Then he published another book, never to be heard from or seen again... kind of.