Benjamin Chambers writes:
Charles McGrath has an excellent article in The New York Times on J.D. Salinger’s last published piece, “Hapworth 16, 1924“. The 25,000-word novella appeared in the June 19, 1965 issue of The New Yorker, and never anywhere else. Thanks to the magic of the Digital Edition, it’s more accessible now than ever before. (Many of Salinger’s other classic works first appeared in the magazine too, although you’d search in vain for Catcher in the Rye because, as Louis Menand pointed out in a 2001 retrospective, the magazine rejected it.)
McGrath has some perceptive things to say about the charm of Salinger’s writing, and why it remains influential. He also hits the nail on the head when he talks about the chief drawback of Salinger’s chronicles about his fictional family, the Glasses:

The very thing that makes the Glasses, and Seymour especially, so appealing to Mr. Salinger— that they’re too sensitive and exceptional for this world— is also what came to make them irritating to so many readers.

Nevertheless, I’d like to wish this great American writer a very happy birthday.