Double room, no bath, no cockroaches. I had brought the bundle of letters with me, the cause of it all. Our only luxury was a taxi from 42nd Street down to the hotel. The driver was from the Dominican Republic and the whole time he kept nodding his head to the beat of ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’, sung by the Supremes. It was a song of the 60s and I had heard it the year I began writing to Salinger. The letters were in a plastic folder and I hadn’t let them out of my sight the whole trip across the Atlantic. They were our meal ticket, they were paying for our hotel, our meals, our Metro cards for the bus and the subway. At night I slept with them under my pillow. The letters were our justification for being in New York. I was terrified someone would break into the Hotel Pioneer and steal the letters. The rumor they were worth a fortune would have preceded us to New York. I lay awake at night listening to the traffic noises down in the street.
What do You think about Salinger's Letters (2015)?
