Holden and Zooey.

J.D Salinger, who died Wednesday, did not give us new worlds as a few great writers have. However, he did gave us a person, fictional, but real in so many ways, that has infiltrated our collective psyche. Holden Caulfied launched a million teenagers. He might be the first teenager. He birthed the idea of a "generation gap", of disaffected youth, of rebels without a cause - that in turn influenced rebels with a cause. I'd argue that Holden Caulfield is more important to post war America than any number of real people.

Talk to any American teenager for 5 minutes - you'll hear echos of Holden Caulfield's disjointed psyche. Caulfield was the first latchkey kid. Traces of his DNA can be found in everyone from James Dean, to Boy George, to the entire wayward and lost Generation X - now in middle age. My people. Who are neither here nor there. Not Boomers and not young enough to be sucked in by "phonies" (Holden's word) like Obama. We are Holden if he'd aged.

In rejecting all the phonies - he saw the celebrity culture coming years before it submerged American life. He understood it for what it was before it took off- an infection.

So Mr. Salinger. Thanks. For Holden Caulfield. And my dear, dear, Zooey Glass. Who, it's safe to say, got me through my twenties. And for rejecting our mass infection. For refusing the movie offers, the interviews, the nonsense. For having presence enough to say what you wanted to say and then saying no more.