In June 1955, at the age of 36, Salinger married Claire Douglas, a Radcliffe student. They had two children, Margaret (b. December 10, 1955) and Matthew (b. February 13, 1960). Margaret Salinger wrote in her memoir Dream Catcher that she believes her parents would not have married, nor would she have been born, had her father not read the teachings of Lahiri Mahasaya, a guru of Paramahansa Yogananda, which brought the possibility of enlightenment to those following the path of the householder (a married person with children).[78] After their marriage, J.D. and Claire were initiated into the path of Kriya yoga in a small store-front Hindu temple in Washington, D.C., during the summer of 1955.[79] They received a mantra and breathing exercises to practice for ten minutes twice a day.[79]
A year later, Salinger's daughter by his second wife Claire Douglas, Margaret, published Dream Catcher: A Memoir. In her book, she described the harrowing control Salinger had over her mother and dispelled many of the Salinger myths established by Ian Hamilton's book. One of Hamilton's arguments was that Salinger's experience with post-traumatic stress disorder left him psychologically scarred, and that he was unable to deal with the traumatic nature of his war service. Though Ms. Salinger allowed that the few men who lived through 'Bloody Mortain,' a battle in which her father fought, were left with much to sicken them, body and soul, [35] she also painted a picture of her father as a man immensely proud of his service record, maintaining his military haircut, service jacket, and moving about his compound (and town) in an old Jeep.
Margaret also offered many insights into other Salinger myths, including her father's supposed long-time interest in macrobiotics and involvement with alternative medicine and Eastern philosophies. A few weeks after Dream Catcher was published, Margaret's brother Matt discredited the memoir in a letter to The New York Observer. He disparaged his sister's gothic tales of our supposed childhood and stated: I can't say with any authority that she is consciously making anything up. I just know that I grew up in a very different house, with two very different parents from those my sister describes. [121]
Probably one of the best-known recluses in history, J. D. Salinger is perhaps also one of the most scrutinized. With Dream Catcher, his daughter, Margaret A. Salinger, has taken this scrutiny to the next level, examining the psyche of the long-silent author of The Catcher in the Rye as only a daughter could.
