Judge rules for J.D. Salinger
NEW YORK - A federal judge ruled yesterday that a Swedish author cannot publish in the United States a book he wrote that was advertised as a sequel to J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye."
U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts issued her ruling in Manhattan after hearing arguments in a lawsuit brought by the reclusive 90-year-old author against the publishers of "60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye."
Batts said Swedish author Fredrik Colting's claim that he wrote the new book to critically examine Salinger's most famous character, Holden Caulfield, was "problematic and lacking in credibility."
She also rejected arguments that a character in Colting's book that was meant to represent Caulfield 60 years later was a parody.
"The court finds that '60 Years' contains no reasonably perceived parodic character as to 'Catcher' and Holden Caulfield," Batts wrote.
She said in a footnote that Colting made no indication before the lawsuit was filed that the book was meant as a parody or critique of Salinger's work.
"Quite to the contrary, the original jacket of '60 Years' states that it is ' . . . a marvelous sequel to one of our most beloved classics,' " the judge noted. *
