Thanks to a comment by Robert Loy, I had a “Homer Simpson” moment for totally forgetting about a crucial Salinger/baseball connection.
Loy wrote, “What I want to know is why the ever-litigious Salinger didn’t sue Bill Kinsella over being included in ‘Shoeless Joe.’ And if he was okay with it why did they change it for the movie?”
Here at the Bookshelf, we aim to please.
From today’s Des Moines Register:
The reclusive Salinger, who died Wednesday, was a character in author W.P. Kinsella’s novel “Shoeless Joe,” the 1982 book that became the movie “Field of Dreams,” both set in Iowa.
“When I was writing the novel I was a fan of Salinger,” said Kinsella, who lives in Canada but earned a master’s degree at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1978. ” ‘Catcher in the Rye’ was the quintessential book of growing up male in North America.”
In Kinsella’s book, the main character – Ray Kinsella – takes Salinger to a baseball game to discover why he was called to build the field of his dreams.
…
Kinsella said the working title of the book was “The Kidnapping of J.D. Salinger.”
After a name change and publication of “Shoeless Joe,” Salinger’s lawyers wrote Kinsella, outraged about the portrayal of the world-wary author.
“Salinger made a career out of being publicized for not seeking publicity,” Kinsella said. “It was controlled and planned, and it kept his name in the media for 50 years.”
But the lawyers had a warning: “In a legalese way, they basically said we don’t have enough money to sue you but we will (expletive) on your wish to use it in a movie,” Kinsella said.That’s why, in the “Field of Dreams” movie, Ray Kinsella seeks out fictional author Terence Mann.
By the way, not only was the name of the author changed for the movie, but so was his race. James Earl Jones played the role of the reclusive writer to near perfection.
He also delivered one of the best baseball movie monologues since Gary Cooper in The Pride of the Yankees.
So thanks, Robert, for bringing up that interesting point.
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Thanks, Ron. I really appreciate that. There’s just one thing about Kinsella’s explanation that makes no sense to me. “Catcher in the Rye” sold 9 bazillion copies and Salinger didn’t have enough money to sue Houghton-Mifflin? I doubt it. Especially since he somehow magically did have enough to sue the film studio. What I figure is that — though he wouldn’t admit it even under torture — J.D. liked the novel’s portrayal of him. But of course he didn’t want to see it made into a movie with himself as a character, because as Holden Caulfield himself would tell you, the movies are full of nothing but phonies.
Thanks, Ron. I really appreciate that. There’s just one thing about Kinsella’s explanation that makes no sense to me. “Catcher in the Rye” sold 9 bazillion copies and Salinger didn’t have enough money to sue Houghton-Mifflin? I doubt it. Especially since he somehow magically did have enough to sue the film studio. What I figure is that — though he wouldn’t admit it even under torture — J.D. liked the novel’s portrayal of him. But of course he didn’t want to see it made into a movie with himself as a character, because as Holden Caulfield himself would tell you, the movies are full of nothing but phonies.
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