Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella

In the book, Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, J.D. Salinger is a major character in the last two-thirds of the novel. In it, he is personified at first as all of the rumors, stories and tales that the general public hears about him by the mass media. As the story progresses, however, he is found to be just a normal, everyday, (if not slightly paranoid due to his fame) gentleman.

J.D. Salinger is first introduced when Ray shows up on his doorstep. How he was able to get through all of the bends and winds to get to the estate in the hills is not of importance. Mr. Salinger is seen as paranoid, angry and put off by anyone showing up at his house, much less a "deranged" fan that insists on taking him to a baseball game. Kinsella is to ease his pain? What pain? To take Mr. Salinger to a baseball game due to an obscure article written years ago? Now Salinger's denying it was ever written. How odd it must have been in the story to see someone come to his door and just offer to take him to a baseball game.

As the story progresses, though, both Salinger and Kinsella are able to see past the undue paranoia that he really is J.D. Salinger. They even poke fun at the fact that a famous (although hermetic) celebrity is out in public and no one even realizes it is him until it is pointed out. He is even mistaken for Truman Capote. What was the paranoia for? It seemed to be for naught, as noted.

Did Salinger get his pain eased? Ray finding out at the end of the story that he actually had given the interview about Polo Grounds seemed to answer a lot of questions throughout the book. The fact that he had his own mission in Minnesota, and the fact that he went along with Ray's adventure shows the readers that he still had a need for some sort of journey himself-a religious "coming to", as it were. Hearing the voice himself was the answer that Salinger needed to believe everything Ray said was true.

Although this was a work of fiction, the personality that Salinger had in the book seemed to be apropos for the reporting that was done regarding him in real life. He was a hermit. Due to the fact that there were no pictures of him published, in the story, he was able to go out in public and not be recognized. The fact that he seemed afraid in public of being recognized in the story was parallel to his real life. The fact that he actually passed away in 2010 and many people thought he had passed away several years earlier was an indication.

It seems that no one, save his family, will ever really know much about J.D. Salinger. Was the book by W.P. Kinsella true to life? As far as the research done about him says, the hermitage part of it was very close. The rest can be chalked up to literary license.

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