Uncommon TLS signed “JDS,” one page both sides, 5.5 x 8.5, February 13, 1981. Salinger responds to a letter from [Mary] Janet Eagleson, a friend and sometime houseguest at his New Hampshire home. In part [Salinger’s spelling, capitalization, and punctuation retained]: “I’m glad to see you again, and I use the verb loosely, philosophically (about eighty percent of the people I hear from are all faceless—occasionally I meet some nice letter writer in New York or Boston for lunch or a drink, and no doubt we both get the shock of our lives on actual sight).… I’m sorry if Inflation, OPEC, and your bum car—villains, all, if you say so…. And I’m genuinely sorry, by the way, you’re so broke. Why is that? A poor-paying job? No job? A bad year for turnips? It’s miserable, or anyway miserable exasperating at times—to be seriously broke. I haven’t been bum-car broke in years, but I remember the condition well…. Well, maybe in spring or summer you’ll strike oil, or at least a few gallons of gas and possibly some new pistons. Brother Tim would be most welcome to stop by, too, but I have fuzzy notions that he might be making a mistake to venture out into the world of barbers and writers and other very shady types until he’s good and ready. All writers, anyway, are far better read than met. I might show Tim someday how to cut his own hair without the loss of an ear or two. I dislike barber shops, barber chairs, and barbers’ conversation myself, and I hit on a way, years ago, not only of cutting my own hair at least as well as they do in five minutes flat. Of course I don’t give out such pearls-of-great-price instructions to just anybody, but brother Tim is far from anybody, isn’t he?… Since you wear a Red Sox hat so boldly in the country of horrifiable puberty [Eagleson’s daughter had made her mother remove her Red Sox hat when her friends were around as she found it embarrassing] it’s only your right to know the cement foundation for this small, sequestered, unmatey-looking house of mine was poured by Carlton Fisk—Pudgy Fisk—no less, years back, when he was waiting to be farmed out for experience and had a summer job with a contractor in the next town.” Accompanied by the original mailing envelope. In very fine condition. In Eagleson’s letter to Salinger, she mentions “the nonsense which that silly Canadian hustler put you through,” probably alluding to Canadian author/reporter Michael Clarkson, who managed to find Salinger at his Cornish, New Hampshire, home in 1979 and conduct a brief interview. Salinger, who aggressively shunned the limelight for more than four decades, has earned a special niche in the autograph world as one of the top rarities among twentieth-century personalities in any field. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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