• "The present day concept of J.D. Salinger makes it difficult to imagine him happy in the army," Slawenski writes. Yet for the most part, Army life suited him well. He had attended a military school as a youth and had thrived there. Later the discipline of military life helped develop him both as a man and as a writer.
• Before the war Salinger lived in Europe for a time, spending time with a Jewish family in Austria and developing a crush on the family's daughter. After the war, before returning home, he tried to find this family and learned all of them had been killed in a concentration camp.
• The regiment in which Salinger served had the highest casualty rate of any American regiment in Europe.
• Salinger returned from Europe with a war bride. She soon left him and returned to Europe.
* The Catcher in the Rye was published in Great Britain before it was published in the United States. Harcourt wanted the author to make significant changes in the book, causing Salinger to turn to another publisher, Little, Brown. The New Yorker, which later printed most of his stories, "refused to print a single word" of the novel. The editors didn't like it. Later the magazine rejected "Zooey" until the editor overruled his subeditors.
• After moving to Cornish, N.H., Salinger led a church youth group for a time and frequently invited teenagers over to his house.
That last item may be, for me at least, the most surprising thing in the entire biography.
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