How Dare You, California?

As a teenager, I was totally convinced that I was crazy...seriously deranged. I had thoughts that I figured cemented my position as a Looney Tunes character, and just knew that I would end up in a suit which featured a jacket with really long arms which could be conveniently tied behind my back. I never understood any of it until Holden Caulfield came into my life. He suddenly made me seem almost "normal," and I began to see myself in a slightly different way: oh, STILL crazy, but not alone. Not the only half-empty (as opposed to half-full) picnic basket in the park.
I must have read his story over and over, almost eclipsing the number of times I had read Huck Finn, and I always felt better. The peace of mind Holden provided me carried me through serious bouts of depression and self-loathing and learn to deal more effectively with an uncanny abilitiy to alienate myself from almost everyone around me. Fortunately, I survived, thanks to Holden. If I had ever fathered a daughter, the plan was to name her Phoebe. Fortunately for the would-be child, my only daughter came with a name attached!
Salinger wrote very little after that book was published in 1951 and became something of a recluse so you can imagine my surprise when I noticed his name appearing on the BBC website. It seems that he, once again, is guarding his privacy via the lawsuit. Previously, he had rebuffed every overture to make The Catcher in the Rye a movie, and there have been many. Now, Salinger finds himself embroiled in a controversy he HAD to see coming: someone has written a "sequel" to his most famous work!
A person from Sweden using the pseudonym of John David California has written a book entitled 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, dedicated it to Salinger and claims the book is a story about "an author and his character." Unless the lawsuit filed this week in New York halts printing, the book is due to be published later this summer by Windupbird Publishing in the U.K. with distribution for the States scheduled for later in the year.
Salinger, now 90, is neither honored or amused. Calling the book "a ripoff, plain and simple," he plans to fight it out in court (via his lawyers...Salinger has not appeared in public for years). Good for him. Holden Caulfield needs to remain firmly planted in my mind just as he was more than 40 years ago when he convinced me that there were other crazy kids in the world...some crazier than I.
If Salinger's suit fails, I will not be breathlessly waiting in line to buy the first copy. I will ignore its phony existence...Mark David Chapman might be the only one to read it.