In the J.D. Salinger benchmark "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," Seymour Glass floats his beach mate Sybil on a raft and tells her about these creatures' tragic flaw. Though they seem normal, if one swims into a hole filled with bananas, it will overeat until it's too fat to escape. Meanwhile, Seymour's wife, Muriel, is back at their Florida hotel, assuring her mother not to worry--Seymour hasn't lost control. Mention of a book he sent her from Germany and several references to his psychiatrist lead the reader to believe that World War II has undone him.The war hangs over these wry stories of loss and occasionally unsuppressed rage. Salinger's children are fragile, odd, hypersmart, whereas his grownups (even the materially content) seem beaten down by circumstances--some neurasthenic, others (often female) deeply unsympathetic. The greatest piece in this disturbing book may be "The Laughing Man," which starts out as a man's recollection of the pleasures of storytelling and ends with the intersection between adult need and childish innocence. The narrator remembers how, at nine, he and his fellow Comanches would be picked up each afternoon by the Chief--a Staten Island law student paid to keep them busy. At the end of each day, the Chief winds them down with the saga of a hideously deformed, gentle, world-class criminal. With his stalwart companions, which include "a glib timber wolf" and "a lovable dwarf," the Laughing Man regularly crosses the Paris-China border in order to avoid capture by "the internationally famous detective" Marcel Dufarge and his daughter, "an exquisite girl, though something of a transvestite." The masked hero's luck comes to an end on the same day that things go awry between the Chief and his girlfriend, hardly a coincidence. "A few minutes later, when I stepped out of the Chief's bus, the first thing I chanced to see was a piece of red tissue paper flapping in the wind against the base of a lamppost. It looked like someone's poppy-petal mask. I arrived home with my teeth chattering uncontrollably and was told to go straight to bed."

J.D.塞林格（Jerome David Salinger，1919年1月1日生）齣生於紐約的一個猶太富商傢庭，他在15歲時就被父親送到賓夕法尼亞州的一所軍事學校。1936年塞林格從軍事學校畢業，1937年又被做火腿進口生意的父親送到波蘭學做火腿。塞林格在紐約的時候就開始嚮雜誌投稿，其中大部分都是為瞭賺錢，但也不乏一些好文章，其中包括瞭《逮香蕉魚的最佳日子》。

二戰中斷瞭塞林格的寫作。1942年塞林格從軍，1944年他前往歐洲戰場從事反間諜工作。戰爭令塞林格恐懼，他之後寫瞭多本以戰爭為題材的書。

1946年塞林格退伍，迴到紐約開始專心創作。他的第一本長篇小說《麥田裏的守望者》1951年齣版，獲得瞭很大的成功，塞林格一舉成名。他之後的作品包括瞭《弗蘭尼與卓埃》（1961年）、《木匠們，把屋梁升高》和《西摩小傳》（1963年）和收錄瞭他的短篇故事的《九故事》（1953年）。塞林格擅長塑造早熟、齣眾的青少年的形象。

《麥田裏的守望者》獲得成功之後，塞林格變得更孤僻。他在新罕布什爾州鄉間的河邊小山附近買下瞭90多英畝的土地，在山頂上建瞭一座小屋，過起瞭隱居的生活。他雖然從未放棄寫作，但他在1951年之後，就很少公開齣版自己的作品。他後期的作品也越來越傾嚮於東方哲學和禪宗。

塞林格在歐洲期間曾經與一個女醫生結婚，但不久便離異。1953年他與一個叫剋萊爾·道格拉斯（Claire Douglas）的女學生相識，兩人後來在1955年結婚，但是後來又離婚。1972年塞格林在一本雜誌上看到一個名叫喬伊斯·梅納德（Joyce Maynard）的耶魯大學女學生的文章和照片，立即被她吸引，兩人開始通信。兩人的關係在十個月後破裂。如今，塞林格娶瞭三任妻子科琳。科琳是一名護士，比他小50歲左右。

1999年，塞林格在34年沒有發錶任何作品後終於發錶瞭新的長篇小說《哈普沃茲16，1924》。《哈普沃茲16，1924》最早是以短篇的形式齣現在1965年的《紐約時報》上。塞林格將這部作品授權一個小的齣版公司，但是到現在他的作品都還沒有齣版。