Sixty years ago, Holden Caulfield defined what it meant to be outside the system. Demographic changes mean that a new generation is looking for a non-white hero. Author Ned Vizzini is on the hunt to make him relevant again.
From a piece in the Daily Beast...
The Catcher in the Rye turns 60 this month. That puts Holden Caulfield in his mid-70s, near the end of his natural lifespan, but in many ways he continues to dominate American culture as he did in the 20th century. He is the White Outsider—a Caucasian kid who despite his advantages feels misunderstood—and he has been everywhere from 1951 on, in Rebel Without a Cause, Spider-Man, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Nirvana, and Wes Anderson, to name a few. He is still the fountainhead of young-adult literature. He is still a handle for anyone wishing to comment on white privilege. He still pops up in press on everyone from Woody Allen to Osama bin Laden. Demographically, though, he has become an endangered species.
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The population shift to the South and West that dominated last year's U.S. Census coverage hid a profound truth: In 12 years, when today's bouncing babies are ready for Holden, more than half of American children will be non-white. The long-predicted shift of America from a majority-white nation to a majority-minority nation will not happen in the general populace for decades (because older whites are living so long), but among the youth it is already taking place. Teachers and writers who venerate Catcher have to ask themselves: How relevant is Holden in a world where he is an actual minority?
Answering this question requires a dip into “post-racial” America that gets uncomfortable.
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