The Dark Association

Mark David Chapman was found reading a copy of Catcher in the Rye after he murdered John Lennon in 1980. John Hinckley Jr. is sometimes folded into the same legend because a copy was reportedly found among books in his hotel room after the Reagan shooting, though his central motive was his obsession with Jodie Foster and Taxi Driver. These associations horrified Salinger and unfairly linked the novel to violence it neither endorses nor inspires.

The connection says more about the readers than the book. Disturbed individuals identified with Holden's alienation while missing his fundamental gentleness. Holden never hurts anyone - he wants to protect children, not harm adults. The misreading reveals more about America's bond with fame, violence, and loneliness than about the novel itself.