 Salinger 's final interview was in June 1980 with Betty Eppes of The Baton Rouge Advocate , which has been represented somewhat differently , depending on the secondary source . By one account , Eppes was an attractive young woman who misrepresented herself as an aspiring novelist , and managed to record audio of the interview as well as take several photographs of Salinger , both without his knowledge or consent . In a separate account , emphasis is placed on her contact by letter writing from the local Post Office , and Salinger 's personal initiative to cross the bridge to meet with the woman , who in the course of the interview made clear she was a reporter ( and who did indeed , at the close , take pictures of Salinger as he departed ) . According to the first account , the interview ended " disastrously " when a local passer @-@ by from Cornish attempted to shake the famous author 's hand , at which point Salinger became enraged . A further account of the interview published later in The Paris Review , purportedly by Eppes as author , has been disowned by Eppes and separately ascribed as a derived work of Review Editor George Plimpton . 
