New novels supposedly on the way from J.D. Salinger and Elmore Leonard

By Sean O'Neal  |  August 26, 2013 | 7:09pm
Aux Features Books

As the world pondered the secret of Salinger that The Weinstein Company fought so hard to conceal through a showy marketing campaign, it seems some people didn’t take the demand for confidentiality in the form of a publicity stunt all that seriously. The New York Times reported over the weekend that Salinger’s bigreveal is that the late author’s estate is supposedly set to publish at least five new books he left behind, beginning as early as 2015. Among these are expansions on familiar characters and stories—including The Family Glass, which revisits the clever yet unhappy clan at the center of so many of his stories, and a retooled version of “The Last And Best Of The Peter Pans,” which will be published in a new collection of stories about Holden Caulfield and his equally dysfunctional family.

Beyond that, new Salinger works are said to include “a story-filled ‘manual’ of the Vedanta religious philosophy, with which Mr. Salinger was deeply involved,” a novella modeled on his World War II experiences, and another WWII novel based on his first marriage, to a German woman Salinger suggests was a Gestapo informant. Naturally, no one involved with Salinger’s family will officially comment on any of these supposed releases, as they are presumably too overcome by a deep existential despair and/or don’t want to talk to any media phonies.

In a comparatively more straight-shooting report befitting its subject, Elmore Leonard’s son Peter tells the BBC that he plans to finish and publish his late father’s final book, Blue Dreams. Right now it's known that the novel, which would be Leonard’s 46th, stars his popular Raylan Givens character, though there are few other details, including exactly how many pages Leonard completed before dying last week. But then, Leonard was never one for extraneous detail.

 
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