 In 2001 , Louis Menand wrote in The New Yorker that " Catcher in the Rye rewrites " among each new generation had become " a literary genre all its own " . He classed among them Sylvia Plath 's The Bell Jar ( 1963 ) , Hunter S. Thompson 's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ( 1971 ) , Jay McInerney 's Bright Lights , Big City ( 1984 ) , and Dave Eggers 's A <unk> Work of Staggering Genius ( 2000 ) . Writer Aimee Bender was struggling with her first short stories when a friend gave her a copy of Nine Stories ; inspired , she later described Salinger 's effect on writers , explaining : " [ I ] t feels like Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye in a day , and that incredible feeling of ease inspires writing . <unk> the pursuit of voice . Not his voice . My voice . Your voice . " Authors such as Stephen Chbosky , Jonathan Safran Foer , Carl Hiaasen , Susan Minot , Haruki Murakami , Gwendoline Riley , Tom Robbins , Louis Sachar , Joel Stein and John Green have cited Salinger as an influence . Musician Tomas <unk> of Streetlight Manifesto also cites Salinger as an influence , referencing him and Holden Caulfield , the main character of Catcher in the Rye , in the song " Here 's To Life " . Biographer Paul Alexander called Salinger " the Greta Garbo of literature " . 
