London Telegraph
JD Salinger starts legal action against sequel author
JD Salinger has started legal proceedings against the writer, publishers and distributor of a sequel to his famous novel The Catcher in the Rye.
Published: 1:52AM BST 02 Jun 2009
Lawyers for Salinger, 90, have filed a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan, seeking to force a recall of what it says is a copycat book titled 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, by someone writing under the name JD California. It also seeks unspecified damages.
The lawsuit said the right to create a sequel to The Catcher in the Rye or to use the character "Holden Caulfield" belongs only to Salinger. The lawsuit says Salinger has "decidedly chosen not to exercise that right."
Besides California, identified in the court papers as "John Doe," the lawsuit also cites Windupbird Publishing, an obscure company allegedly based in London; a Swedish publisher, Nicotext; and SCB Distributors, based in Gardena, California.
In 60 Years Later, scheduled to be published in Britain this summer and in the United States in the autumn, a character very much like Caulfield is 76 years old, an escapee from a retirement home and identified as "Mr. C." The novel is dedicated to Salinger and the author is a character in it, too, wondering whether to continue Caulfield's story.
"The Sequel is not a parody and it does not comment upon or criticise the original," Salinger's lawsuit claims. "It is a ripoff pure and simple."
The lawsuit presented California as a mysterious, unsavoury character, of uncertain name and location. "His precise whereabouts are unknown, despite due investigation," according to the court papers.
Aaron Silverman, the director of SCB Distributors, said that California was a resident of Sweden. A man identifying himself as California said that he lived outside of Goteborg, Sweden. He called the legal action "a little bit insane" and said that Salinger had control over the names of his characters, but not over his style or perspective.
"To me, this is a story about an old man. It's a love story, a story about an author and his character," said California, who added that John David California was his pen name. He declined to give his real name and said that he did not intend "John David" as an homage to Salinger, whose full name is Jerome David Salinger.
"I did not mean to cause him any trouble," California said.
A recluse living in rural New Hampshire, Salinger has not published in a book in decades and has rarely been heard from in public - expect when taking legal action.
In 1982, he sued a man who allegedly tried to sell a fictitious interview with the author to a national magazine. The impostor agreed to desist and Salinger dropped the suit.
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John David California the New York based author of the new sequel to the Catcher in the Rye Photo: JULIAN SIMMONDS
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