There Are Five New J.D. Salinger Books Coming

The big secrets revealed in Shane Salerno's new J.D. Salinger documentary and accompanying book, both appropriately titled Salinger, are here and, frankly, they are huge. The big reveal that Harvey Weinstein compared to The Crying Game is that five previously unpublished works from the last half of the famous author's life will be published starting in 2015.

The big secrets revealed in Shane Salerno's new J.D. Salinger documentary and accompanying book, both appropriately titled Salinger, are here and, frankly, they are huge. The big reveal that Harvey Weinstein compared to The Crying Game is that five previously unpublished works from the last half of the famous author's life will be published starting in 2015.

This is like spoiling the end of a movie — Weinstein was strangely right — but the news is too great not to share. According to new reports from The New York Times and the Associated Press, there will be new published works by the notoriously reclusive author starting in 2015. There are five new pieces in total, they involve some of Salinger's most beloved characters, and this delayed schedule was Salinger's plan. Before his death, Salinger instructed his estate as to when and how to release the works. The Times has the most detailed summation of the forthcoming stories:

One collection, to be called “The Family Glass,” would add five new stories to an assembly of previously published stories about the fictional Glass family, which figured in Mr. Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey” and elsewhere, according to the claims, which surfaced in interviews and previews of the documentary and book last week.

Another would include a retooled version of a publicly known but unpublished tale, “The Last and Best of the Peter Pans,” which is to be collected with new stories and existing work about the fictional Caulfields, including “Catcher in the Rye.” The new works are said to include a story-filled “manual” of the Vedanta religious philosophy, with which Mr. Salinger was deeply involved; a novel set during World War II and based on his first marriage; and a novella modeled on his own war experiences.

So this is Salerno and Weinstein's big reveal, the secrets teased in the intense lead-up to the release of the book and movie next week. They kept everything under wraps until now, as is only appropriate for a Salinger project. 

For now, no one close to Salinger is admitting anything. The author's estate, run mostly by his son Matt Salinger and widow Colleen O'Neill, aren't commenting on anything. Salerno claims two "independent and separate" anonymous sources told him of the plans. The author only spoke with a very close-knit group of people in the later stages of his life, so it's unclear how Salerno found two people who could have known about the plan. We have to take his word and trust that his sourcing is solid.