Dear Mr. Salinger,

You’ll have to excuse me in my writing to you. I wish that this wouldn’t be such a contrarian effort. I feel like I know you. Or perhaps that is far too bold a thing to say. Perhaps I mean to say that I feel that you would understand me. Holden, being borne from you, is someone I’d love to meet. He and I are so similar in so many ways. We both seem to have that angst against the idiocy of society, that desire to make the world right; that sense of alienation and isolation from society because of our diverging morals and values. Yet it is precisely that loneliness and solitary standing that would drive us to avoid each other. So perhaps it is enough to simply know that there is at least one struggling soul out there who knows what it is to be the lone wolf who sees the phonies for who they are, who refuses to become one himself.

I just want to say that Catcher in the Rye was an incredible piece of work that I hope will live on forever. It is a veritable masterpiece, a work of literary art that I can only dream of aspiring to. I hope that I can walk in your footsteps…my dream is to publish just one astounding novel. I don’t want the fame, I don’t want to be a legend, I don’t even want the money. I just want to create something as profound as you have Mr. Salinger. And then I’d disappear from this torrid world of falsehoods and insincerity, just like you. I wish that you and I could’ve bumped into each other on the streets of Manhattan. I wish that I could’ve had sat down with you in Central Park for just five minutes. No Mr. Salinger, I am not a starfucker. I just wished that I could’ve gleaned even a sliver of your literary talent and received just a few wise words of encouragement. I am forever indebted to you Mr. Salinger, for your literary inspiration and emotional catharsis. May you rest in peace.