Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction
First published 1955 · 224 pages
- Novels
- Young adult
This book pairs two long pieces about the Glass family. In the title story, Buddy Glass recalls the day of his eldest brother Seymour's wedding in wartime New York, when a group of guests is stuck together in a hot car and awkward conversation follows. In the second, Buddy tries to describe Seymour himself, a poet and spiritual guide to his siblings, in a rambling, affectionate and self-doubting manner. Together they show Salinger's growing interest in memory, devotion and the limits of describing a person, and they are central to the Glass saga.
Quotes
If there is an amateur reader still left in the world — or anybody who just reads and runs — I ask him or her, with untellable affection and gratitude, to split the dedication of this book four ways with my wife and children.
Charlotte once ran away from me, outside the studio, and I grabbed her dress to stop her, to keep her near me. A yellow cotton dress I loved because it was too long for her.
I was not only twenty-three, but a conspicuously retarded twenty-three.
How terrible it is when you say I love you and the person on the other end shouts back "What?"