Writing alum Adam Messinger ('20) publishes the article "Is ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ phony or still cool? 6 writers reflect on its legacy at 75" in the Los Angeles Times (July 16, 2026). In the article, Messinger explores what The Catcher in the Rye means to young readers today. Messinger acknowledges how J. D. Salinger's landmark novel has become problematic for many curricula while also underscoring what it continues to reveal about our world: "to reread the novel today is to be struck by shades of a loneliness we talk about as a problem unique to the 2020s. Spotlighting Holden’s journey reveals the origin of our isolated young men, one that so often ends in radicalization or even worse ... podcasting."
Messinger goes on to interview six writers who share their own thoughts on what The Catcher in the Rye means today: Otessa Moshfegh, Tod Goldberg, David L. Ulin, Oscar Villalon, Jean Kyoung Frazier, and Anna Dorn.
Adam Messinger lives and writes in L.A. and runs the Substack adumbmessinger.