Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour（ISBN=9780316769518）

The author writes: The two long pieces in this book originally came out in The New Yorker ? RAISE HIGH THE ROOF BEAM, CARPENTERS in 1955, SEYMOUR ? An Introduction in 1959. Whatever their differences in mood or effect, they are both very much concerned with Seymour Glass, who is the main character in my still-uncompleted series about the Glass family. It struck me that they had better be collected together, if not deliberately paired off, in something of a hurry, if I mean them to avoid unduly or undesirably close contact with new material in the series. There is only my word for it, granted, but I have several new Glass stories coming along ? waxing, dilating ? each in its own way, but I suspect the less said about them, in mixed company, the better. Oddly, the joys and satisfactions of working on the Glass family peculiarly increase and deepen for me with the years. I can't say why, though. Not, at least, outside the casino proper of my fiction.

美国最重要的当代作家之一、《麦田里的守望者》作者杰罗姆?大卫?塞林格，于2010年1月27日在新罕布什尔州的家中去世，终年91岁。
塞林格的《麦田里的守望者》一书被认为是二十世纪美国文学的经典作品之一。 《麦田里的守望者》由美国小布朗出版于1951年，是塞林格唯一一部长篇小说。 小说主人公霍尔顿是出身于富裕中产阶级的十六岁少年，在第四次被开除出学校之后，不敢贸然回家，只身在美国最繁华的纽约城游荡了一天两夜，住小客店，逛夜总会，滥交女友，酗酒……他看到了资本主义社会的种种丑恶，接触了各式各样的人物，其中大部分是“假模假式的”伪君子。该书塑造了美国当代文学中最早的反英雄形象之一, 一经问世便风靡全球，在青少年中引起强烈共鸣.
《麦田里的守望者》已经被译作多国文字，销量突破了6,500万本。它也跻身到20世纪最畅销和最有影响小说的行列．该书1983年由译林出版社引进中国.　
《麦田里的守望者》获得成功后，塞林格又创作了短篇小说集《九故事》（1953）、《弗兰妮与祖伊》（1961）和《抬高房梁，木匠们；西摩：小传》（1963）。《九故事》被不少文学评论家认为比《麦田里的守望者》更出色，其中主角都是一些不合时宜的男女青年，但却未能获得同样的大众欢迎度。