Salinger's Letters by Nils Schou Page B

example.’
    â€˜You were friends with Warhol? And he never said anything about it in his diaries?’
    â€˜Andy virtually besieged me. He told me he looked up people who knew me, he came up here and knocked on the door. Andy taught me something. Unfortunately it was much too late at that point; I was already famous as the freak who never gave interviews. Andy taught me how to be open and reserved at the same time. There was Andy the exhibitionist, wide open, the persona he had created as a shelter from the outside world. And there was the shy, withdrawn Andy. He kept that side of himself to himself. That way he didn’t have to live the hermit’s life I had created for myself. I’m just as sociable as Andy was, or at least almost. It’s just that Andy managed his inner split better than me. We were good friends. He used to come up here and visit, especially after he had been shot in the stomach by that crazy woman who wanted some of his fame to wear off on her and could only get it by shooting him. When Andy was here he took off his wig so nobody recognized him. We’d go fishing together. Andy was extremely intelligent and enjoyed hiding behind the façade of the red-neck village idiot. On the personal level the person he reminded me of most was Elvis Presley.’
    â€˜Did you know Elvis too? I thought you despised popular culture?’
    â€˜Does that surprise you? We often spoke on the phone. He was very gentle, very well mannered.’
    Salinger fell silent for a moment. Then he turned to me and indicated I could continue the interview.
    â€˜Do you still write?’
    â€˜Every day.’
    â€˜What do you do with your manuscripts? Is it true what the rumours say that you have a safe full of manuscripts that won’t be published until you die?’
    â€˜I’ve published lots of books since 1965.’
    â€˜You what?’
    â€˜Under other names.’
    â€˜How many?’
    â€˜Seven. Or is it eight?’
    â€˜Can you give me the books’ titles?’
    â€˜I can. But I won’t.’
    â€˜Why don’t you publish them under your own name?’
    â€˜It turned out that publishing under a pen name has a marvelous effect on me. The vanity, the ego I’ve been fighting all my life simply disappears. I can concentrate on doing what I like best, writing well and telling interesting stories.’
    â€˜How have your books been received?’
    â€˜Often better than the books I published under my own name. That was a trick Greta Garbo taught me.’
    â€˜Did you know Garbo?’
    â€˜We were good friends. I had been called the Greta Garbo of literature so often that when we accidentally ran into each other on the corner of Second Avenue and 47 th Street she came right over to me and introduced herself. As you can imagine I was beside myself with pride. She and Marilyn Monroe were my two best women friends in the movie industry.’
    â€˜My God, did you know Marilyn too?’
    â€˜Hey, take it easy there. Marilyn and I were friends all the way back in the 50s. We met in the waiting room of our mutual psychiatrist, a German woman who had been a patient of Freud’s. We got to talking in the waiting room because we always arrived at the same time and our therapist was always delayed because of the patients before us.’
    Salinger had a faraway look in his eyes. I let him alone, then I asked, ‘Tell me how you write.’
    â€˜Every morning I go over to the little house I built on the grounds. I lie down on the sofa because of a back injury I’ve had since the war and write by hand. I write with the same pencils and on the same paper that Hemingway used. I met him during the war in France. I looked him up and asked him to read a short story I had written. When he’d read it he picked up a revolver and shot the head off a chicken to show his appreciation. Never was I given higher praise. We corresponded until just