A group of four typed letters signed ("Jerry") to the actress Geraldine Brooks (1925-1977); Windsor, Vermont, 20 September 1962, 20 May 1964, 7 June 1974, and 30 May 1976
From the Bart Auerbach Collection. A total of 6 pages, 4to, half are single-spaced, at least 2600 words, with three envelopes. Fine, chatty letters to a good friend, in very good to fine condition. Item #409488
20 September 1962: "... I guessed you were in Hollywood... because I've seen you in TV plays coming out of there... I had a letter a couple of years ago... from Hedy Lamarr. It was business, and I disappointed her in the end... she thought she had to let me know or to remind me that there are as many nice and reasonable people in Hollywood as anywhere else... I'm very glad if my stories meant something to you... I hope to hell I see you one of these months, Gerry..."
20 May 1964: Salinger devotes about half of the first page (of two single-spaced) to an amusing account of a "really nutty, unblanaced" so-called Hollywood producer showing up to talk about a movie sale. He then praises her TV acting career and warns her about her upcoming marriage to Budd Schulberg (she became his third wife that July): "... Thus speaks a born book lover, of course, a real cavalier, boulvardier. I suspect, ominously, that most writers conk out on their ladies, so be on guard, dear Gerry. Something about the writer's mind that doesn't respond with any genuine gallantry to intense personal involvement." He adds a postscript: "I may one day love to sell one small property to TV, on account of a promise I once made and can't really break, but all my other fiction people will stay on the printed page where they belong."
7 June 1974: "... It's nice, I think, that you have something on your mind you'd like to talk about. A tiny bit problematic, though, that you'd like to try it out in conversation first, since (a) I hardly ever go anywhere, and (b) I'm increasingly devoted to the written word... Surely, everything important should be written about first and talked about second, never the reverse... You're a round and comely letter-writer, and I'm a good and careful reader, and I think you ought to try me out..."
30 May 1976: Salinger begins by gently scolding Brooks for not writing about the important matter she wanted to discuss with him in person. "... Please do shoot me a few lines and clear up this thing, won't you. Sooner or later into every middleaged writer's psyche a little paranoia softly creeps..." Salinger goes on to write about a mutual friend who passed away; critiques a TV sitcom on which Brooks appeared; and discourages her from visiting him at his home in Windsor, Vermont (the Schulbergs would be in nearby Hanover, New Hampshire): "... It would be a treat to see you when or if you're up this way, but bore and bastard that I am, my life up here is under the same tiresome restrictive conditions that they were last year and the year before, meaning that I still don't or won't do anything perfectly convivial and nice when I'm up here in the country working... if you're in some kind of trouble that you think I might be able to reduce or help with, I wish you'd say, Gerry. I'm not so complete an oaf that I wouldn't make a move if I thought it would help. Please say..." The important matter must have been medical: Geraldine Brooks died of a heart attack, while battling cancer, in June 1977. (BA).
Price: $30,000.00