Today would have been J.D. Salinger’s birthday.
This is a fitting time to recall (and thanks Noah Diamond for reminding me) that Les and Bessie, the parents in the Glass family stories (“A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut”, “Down at the Dinghy”, “Franny”, “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters”, “Zooey”, “Seymour: An Introduction”, and “Hapworth 16, 1924”) were former VAUDEVILLIANS, the father an Australian Jew, the mother Irish, and there are a few vaudeville references peppered throughout. I was going to include this little factoid in No Applause but couldn’t figure out how to squeeze it in…That’s what this blog is for, I guess!
My brilliant wife, who’s the bigger Salinger expert in our household, tells me “It’s a Wise Child” is also relevant. She blogged about Salinger when he died. That tribute is here.
To learn more about the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.
