Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

A haunting and deeply personal portrait of family tragedy from the much-loved author of The Catcher in the Rye
Buddy Glass is the second-eldest son in the eccentric and enchanting Glass family. He is on leave from the army during World War II, attending the wedding of his eldest brother, Seymour. But the wedding is not a happy one- it is overcast by a sense of strange suspense. Perhaps everyone is aware, on some level, of what is to come. And in the years after the tragedy, Buddy is haunted by memories of Seymour, turning over in his mind everything that came to pass with his deeply complex and unhappy older brother.
With painful tenderness and great subtlety, Salinger unfolds a story of family tragedy from the point of view of one character - Buddy - who has long been suspected to be a portrait of the author himself.
%%%First published in the New Yorker in the 1950s, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour- an Introductionare two novellas narrated by Buddy Glass, a character often said to be a portrait of Salinger himself. In the first, Buddy has taken leave from the army during World War II to attend the wedding of the eldest Glass brother, Seymour, and an atmosphere of portentous suspense sets the scene for the tragedy that will follow. In the second, Buddy reminisces about Seymour and the novella unfolds into a deep and far-reaching exploration of a complex and sad character which displays all the tenderness and subtlety which distinguish the best of Salinger's writing.