Catcher In The Why? What? Who? Fuck.

"In retreating from public life, [J.D. Salinger] experimented with a long list of belief systems, sending those close to him into retreat. In the 1950s, [he] acquired a guru and took up the practice of Kriya Yoga, persuading his new wife Claire to share the vibe. He eventually gave it up for the sci-fi cult of Dianetics [Scientology] before moving on to Christian Science, macrobiotics, an Atlantis cult, vomiting therapy, urine therapy, speaking in tongues, and a fertility cult.

Admitting that she once ran away from their home, his wife Claire said that her husband would regularly leave Cornish for weeks at a time to write, 'only to return with the piece he was supposed to be finishing all undone or destroyed, and some new "ism" we had to follow'. By the mid-60s, according to their daughter Margaret, Salinger had isolated Claire so much from family and friends she was 'a virtual prisoner'. She left him in 1966.

Over 40 years later, he still lives in splendid isolation; still a hero to millions, but perhaps a living endorsement of the maxim that you should never meet your heroes."

-- The Independent