From HuffPost:
The family of writer J.D. Salinger plans to publish a wealth of secret works he created over the last half century of his life, his son told The Guardian in an interview published Monday.
“This was somebody who was writing for 50 years without publishing, so that’s a lot of material,” Matt Salinger told the newspaper. He said he and Salinger’s widow, Colleen O’Neill, are “going as fast as we freaking can” to get it ready for publication. But he warned that it could take years — hopefully less than a decade — to publish everything the reclusive author left behind after his death in 2010. But Matt Salinger vowed: “All of what he wrote will at some point be shared.”
He said his dad “wanted me to pull it together, and because of the scope of the job, he knew it would take a long time.”
The author of the painful coming-of-age novel “Catcher in the Rye” and creator of the ultimate angry-young-man protagonist Holden Caulfield “teemed with ideas and thoughts,” said his son. “He’d be driving the car and pull over to write something and laugh,” and he had a notebook next to every chair in his isolated New Hampshire home, Matt said.
Link to the rest at HuffPost
I used to have problems with this, but I’ve changed my mind on it. What is the point of creating and retaining control over IP if not to pass it on to your heirs someday? What they choose to do with it at that point is up to them. Trying to control things that now belong to your heirs after your death means you failed as a parent and don’t trust them with what you’ve given them.
My first thought was “Wow, even JD Salinger had trouble with Heinlein’s Rule 4.” 🙂
And another dead author has something to sell – you’d think it was one of those meme things or something …