Confronting another in an apparently unending series of collected essays about J. D. Salinger 's The Catcher in the Rye (1951), a British reviewer once asked with some asperity why nearly every American critic who wrote about the novel seemed compelled to describe his or her own first reading of the book. The reason is that, for many American readers of Salinger's generation and after, Holden Caulfield's confessions contributed to an understanding of their own adolescent experiences. For them the book marks a moment of self-awareness, when they discovered anew their deeper connections to their culture.

Born in New York City, Jerome David Salinger was the younger of two children and the only son born to Sol and Miriam Jillich Salinger. His father was a prosperous meat and cheese importer. The family lived in the fashionable apartment district of upper Manhattan, moving several times before fall 1932, when they settled...