A contemporary review of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger when it was first published
New York Times July 16 (Mon.), 1951 Books of The Times By Nash K. Burger It is just before Christmas and 16-year-old Holden Caulfield has been kicked out of exclusive Pencey Prep, a boys' school in Pennsylvania. Considering everything, this reflects more credit on Holden than on Pencey. Life at Pencey is dreary, regimented, artificial and, of course, expensive. This happens, however, to be only the latest of a series of schools from which Holden has been expelled. Understandably he is in no hurry to encounter his parents, but he is also reluctant to linger a moment longer than necessary at Pencey. He therefore takes what money he has and departs for New York, where he passes several days in a weird jumble of adventures and experiences, is involved with a variety of persons including taxi driers, two nuns, an elevator man, three girls from Seattle, a prostitute, and a former teacher from whom Holden thinks it best to flee in the middle of the night and most of all from himself....
