During the years I was actively dealing with the loss of my sister, I began reading any book about sibling loss I could get my hands on.  One of the novels I devoured was The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.  I had read it in school, before Ruth died, and didn’t get it.  When I picked it up again years later — after I’d lost my sister, I could relate to what Holden was feeling and why.

“For bereaved siblings, reading Catcher is an aha moment,” I said in my memoir.  “Holden is doing what he’s doing and saying what he’s saying because he’s in extreme pain over the death of his beloved younger brother,  Allie, who died of leukemia four years earlier. Continue reading Feeling Holden Caulfield’s Pain →