| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

In Cold Fear: The Catcher in the Rye Censorship Controversies and Postwar American Character. By Pamela Hunt Steinle. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000. x, 238 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-8142-0848-7.)

What is it about Holden Caulfield? Why is the hero of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951) still as irritating, disturbing, challenging, and, for some, as worrisome and censorable as ever? 1

More than fifty years after its publication, as the American studies specialist Pamela Hunt Steinle points out, Catcher is still the most assigned and most censored book in America. The enduring issue about Holden himself, for both his fans and those who fear him, is best summed up in that all-purpose buzzword of the present decade, attitude. Cynical, profane, and constantly griping, sixteen-year-old Holden seems to respect nothing. Yet, as Professor Steinle notes, his values are really pretty conventional, and they are also deeply held; what makes him angry is that no one seems to live up to them. . . .

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