Salinger's Letters by Nils Schou, book review: Losing sight of The Catcher in the Rye author

JD Salinger made his name as much on the immense reception of The Catcher in the Rye as the mythology surrounding him as mysterious, aloof, shying away from publicity, unwilling to give interviews. It is little wonder that since his death, many of his writerly fans are attempting to make a name for themselves through telling tales of their own rare – often brief – encounters with the writer who inspired their careers.

If one were to pick up Salinger's Letters, a fictional tale from Danish author Nils Schou, expecting a charming tale of correspondence between the two writers with a focus on a description of Salinger himself, they should prepare to be disappointed. On the flipside, perhaps you are a Holden Caulfield sympathiser who spends a large amount of time wallowing in your own melancholic thoughts while sitting in a botanical garden, miserable in the belief that the world owes you something. If so, this kind of fictional self-indulgence might work for you. It is true that Schou corresponded with Salinger through letters and once met the man in a New York hotel – a meeting he suggests was brief, unextraordinary but satisfying, "like meeting Elvis Presley".

For the purposes of this novel, Schou reinvents that correspondence to sound ultimately more dramatic through the medium of his protagonist, Dan Moller, a Danish writer who, funnily enough, also has a store of letters from Salinger.

The story begins with Moller receiving a mysterious call from an American buyer who wants the original letters. It's an idea Moller cannot fathom. Once a princely sum is named however, he's straight on a plane to New York to discuss his options in return for a unique meeting with JD himself. It is always difficult to complain about characters who suffer from mental health problems, even if they are fictional. But there is something about spending 218 pages with a depressed, humourless Danish writer who names his own depression "Amanda" that may turn the most patient of readers into depressed and humourless critics.

Had Schou written in Danish and not straight into English, we might have blamed its clunkiness on something lost in translation. There is a certain romantic charm to Salinger's Letters and fans of Salinger may well enjoy descriptions of him, but ultimately, the novel walks down the path of a directionless ramble. Moller (Schou?) is an academic type who pays homage to Søren Kierkegaard and Frederik Dessau. But he is also so self-pitying a character that by a certain point, we lose all sight of Salinger, and the story

Sandstone Press, £8.99. Order at £8.54 inc. p&p from the Independent Bookshop