NEW YORK — A Swedish author whose new book was promoted as a sequel to J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” cannot publish it in the United States because it too closely mirrors Salinger’s classic without adequate parody or critique, a judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts issued her ruling on a lawsuit brought by the 90-year-old reclusive author against the publishers of “60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye.” She said Fredrik Colting’s claim that he also wrote the book to critically examine Salinger’s most famous character, Holden Caulfield, was “problematic and lacking in credibility.” She added that Colting and his publishers made no indication before the suit was filed that the book was meant as a parody or critique of Salinger’s work.
Colting said in a court document that he did not “slavishly copy” Salinger when he wrote his first novel under the pseudonym J.D. California. “I am not a pirate,” he wrote.
He said his book transforms “the precocious and authentic Holden into a 76-year-old man fraught with indecision and insecurity.”
The character, identified as Mr. C, escapes from a retirement home and has experiences similar to those Caulfield went through decades earlier.
Wednesday’s ruling by Batts was a temporary order meant to remain in place until the full facts of the case could be aired at a later trial.
