J

a, so, dis is der story uf me, a young mensch who vanders arount New York mit dem red hat on mein kupf. So, der is all diese peoples, they really, how you say, pissing me off. Ich bin ein pissed off teenager, if you know vat I’m saying to you? So, anyhow, ich see all these ducks in Central Park, very beautiful, ja. And I am so, so angry at dis and dat. Vy? Vy ist me so wery angered? Because they ist der phonies! They ist der shams. Der phony, phony,phony! All mit der smiling und laughing! Vat ist dis here, 99 Luftballoons? Mein Gott! So, ja, I making up mein mind I’m no more going back to my Pensey school. Nein! Mit more of dem phonies. Sorry to Charlie! Then, you understand, der ist ein carousel, going round unt round. And there ist dis catcher, he’s grabben der kinder auf der rye. So, that’s it. Ja? Now, what you say we dance? Unt an ein, and a zwei … Oom pah pah, oom pah pah!

T

HE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW JERSEY have met again around the site of their infamous last supper. This time they are trying to keep an uneasy peace and discuss another popular and infamous book: The Catcher in the Rye.

TERESA: This book was O.K. and everything but I’m kind of pissed off about something I read on the second page.

CAROLINE: I know what she’s talking about. I do. I know. Because I need to look into things. You know. Things. Especially when they are about my family.

DINA: I thought it was stupid.

TERESA: This thing about his brother. On the second page.

DANIELLE: I didn’t get to the second page.

TERESA: Prostitution whore!

JACQUELINE: Let’s not get into this again.

CAROLINE: I have to protect my family from books like this. It’s right there on the second page.

DINA: What’s on the second page? I didn’t get that far.

Danielle puts the book on the table. Everyone stares at it with dagger eyes. The tension in the room is palpable. Teresa picks up the book and starts flipping the pages.

TERESA: Prostitution whore! Right there on the second page! “Now he’s out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute.”

CAROLINE: I don’t like this. Not one bit. And he doesn’t even seem to like his family, except for his sister. How can that be? Let me tell you something about my family, we’re as tick as teeves. And this kid. There’s something phony about him.

DINA: Yeah. He’s a total phony.

DANIELLE: Let me tell you about Holden Caulfield. Holden Caulfield struggled. He was out there, raising his kids and he did what he had to do. You can’t judge Holden Caulfield. You don’t know Holden Caulfield. But that’s just my opinion. I only read the first page.

JACQUELINE: I thought he represented post-war restlessness, coming back to a world completely changed that no longer makes sense but you are forced find your place in that world, even though there is no place for you. Holden is not an adolescent. He’s the representative man.

CAROLINE: Let me tell you something about the representative man. He’s a brick of beef.

“This book was O.K. and everything but I’m KIND OF PISSED OFF about something I read on the second page.”

DINA: This is stupid.

DANIELLE: Holden was never a prostitute. He was struggling through a life. Yes, he made mistakes. Yes, he was slightly derivative of Huckleberry Finn and yes he spawned countless even more derivative novels, but that’s not the character’s issue. That’s Salinger’s.

JACQUELINE: Did you hear about the lawsuit? The sequel to the book?

DINA: That’s stupid. What are you talking about?

TERESA: Lawyer Whore! Suing everyone! If that lawyer thinks he can come up to the First Amendment and strip a writer’s natural right to build or answer other creative works, he’s got another thing coming.

CAROLINE: Let me tell you something about intellectual property attorneys, they nickel their eaves.

DANIELLE: You don’t understand what it is to be an intellectual property attorney. You have no idea what it’s like to be out there, worrying about copyright and intellectual property. Are people using his work for their own monetary gain? Is it permissible?

DINA: I hear he’s a freak.

JACQUELINE: You are a bunch of liars. Salinger’s a great American writer and his retreat from society is necessary to find both inner peace and respite from the din of the American clamor.

TERESA: Phony Whore! Phony Whore! You think you’re better than Salinger or Holden. You sit here judging him!

Teresa slams her hand on the table and then flips the table over. Chaos ensues.

TERESA: Phony Whore! You think you can come in here and judge Salinger. Fucking anti-intellectual whore. Who are you Harold Bloom? Thinking it’s derivative? Fuck Harold Bloom! Canon making whore!

Next week, the Housewives will be reading The Crying of Lot 49.
Spoiler Alert: Dina’s head literally explodes.

“Rapper 50 Cent will collaborate with a team of writers on a series of novels about life on the streets.”

—Variety

The Rapper in the Rye by 50 Cent and J. D. Salinger If you really want to hear about it, you’ll want to hear all the David Copperfield crap about my lousy childhood and how I was abandoned by my father and raised by my bisexual crack dealer mother, but I don’t feel like going into it. I’m not going to tell you my whole goddamn autobiography. I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened when I was shot three times in front of my grandmother’s house in Queens. I had taken the train home from school, and this lady got on and sat next to me. All of a sudden she said, “Excuse me, isn’t that an Andrew Jackson High School sticker?” She was looking up at my suitcase on the rack. “Yes, it is,” I said. It did have a corny Andrew Jackson sticker on it. “Do you go there?” she asked. “Yes, I do.” “Perhaps you know my son—D-Block?” “Yes, he’s in my class.” Her son was doubtless the biggest wanksta in the whole crumby history of the school. He used to walk the halls squirting people with his Super Soaker, saying that’s how he and his posse rolled in the hood. That’s the kind of guy he was. “How nice! I must tell D we met,” she said. “May I ask your name, dear?” “50 Cent,” I told her. I didn’t feel like giving her my whole life story. 50 Cent was how much change I had in my pocket. I like change, but you can hardly buy anything with it. “Well, nice to meet you, Fifty,” she said. Fifty—that killed me.

* * * A Tale of Two Boroughs by 50 Cent and Charles Dickens It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of gangsta rap, it was the age of wanksta rap; we had everything before us—endorsements for G-Unit Sneakers—we had nothing before us without a personal book imprint I could sell at Borders; we were all going direct to Queens, we were all going direct the other way to Hell’s Kitchen. In South Jamaica, a daring burglary by 50 Cent took place on the front steps of the Central Library. Ja Rule was late returning The Ski Mask Way. Rather than put a “hold” on it like a wanksta, 50 Cent decided to get the book or die tryin’.

* * * What Ho, G! by 50 Cent and P. G. Wodehouse If you’ve never had a rap sidekick, I recommend that you get one, posthaste. I don’t know how I ever got along without mine—BackWurdz—a brainy sort who always comes up with words when I’m stuck for a rhyme. It happened just the other day, as I was sitting at the breakfast table and burst into verse: Sound E-Fex, live and uncut! My style’s like a punch that goes straight to the gut! I’m better than competitors, I sure don’t need no editors, Once you try my flavor, Ta-dum-te-dum-te-dum. Even after the sizzling eggs and b. that BackWurdz brought me I couldn’t complete the lines that I hoped to incorporate into a bootleg of borrowed beats. “BackWurdz, old fellow?” I said. “Yes, dog?” “I’m stuck.” “Indeed, dog.” “For want of a rhyme, a track could be lost,” I explained. “What is the word for which you seek an assonant?” See? The man’s a veritable vocab cornucopia. “Once you try my flavor …” “Your voice will quickly quaver,” he replied evenly, as if reciting a principle of double-entry bookkeeping. “Wurdz, you’ve outdone yourself!” I exclaimed. “I endeavor to give satisfaction, dog.”