Glass family

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The Glass family is a group of fictional characters that have been featured in a number of J.D. Salinger's short stories and also in the novel Franny and Zooey, which began as the short stories "Franny" and "Zooey." All but one of the Glass family stories were first published in The New Yorker; several of them have been collected and published in the two compilations Nine Stories and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, and in the novel Franny and Zooey.

Members

The Glass family, from eldest to youngest:

• Les and Bessie Glass (née Gallagher): Retired vaudeville performers. Les is Jewish, and is in the entertainment business. He is not mentioned often in the stories, but is criticized by Seymour in "Hapworth 16, 1924." Bessie, the matriarch, is Irish, and is characterized as consistently worried about the fact her children are talented yet largely unable to assimilate into society. They are the parents of the seven children:

• Seymour Glass: The eldest, born in 1917. Seymour is featured in Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," "Hapworth 16, 1924," and Franny and Zooey. He is the author of the letter that comprises "Hapworth" and is the main character in "Bananafish." Seymour was a spiritual savant and brilliant intellectual, and became a professor at Columbia at 20. Along with his siblings he was a regular star on the radio program It's a Wise Child. He fought in the European Theatre of World War II, and was deeply scarred by the experience. He married Muriel Fedder in 1942, as described in "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters." Seymour committed suicide in 1948, in the story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," while the couple are on a second honeymoon. Muriel is asleep on the bed beside him at the time.

• Webb Gallagher "Buddy" Glass: The protagonist in "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters," "Seymour: An Introduction," and the narrator of "Zooey." It is revealed in the latter that he wrote at least two stories collected in Nine Stories: "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "Teddy." It is also suggested in "Seymour: An Introduction" that he wrote The Catcher in the Rye. Buddy is often considered to be Salinger's alter ego. He lives in upstate New York and teaches English at a rural women's college. He also volunteers his time to instruct some of the faculty of his college in Mahayana Buddhism. Buddy and Seymour were only two years apart, they spent most of their youths living together, and were very close before Seymour's suicide in 1948. Buddy narrates most of the Glass stories. He was born in 1919.

• Beatrice "Boo Boo" Glass Tannenbaum: Married, mother of three children, appears centrally in "Down at the Dinghy," is mentioned in "Hapworth 16, 1924," and is often referenced in "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" as the "seafaring" sibling currently occupying the New York apartment where much of the story's action takes place. She "modestly prefers to be referred to as a Tuckahoe homemaker." She was born in 1921, as Buddy mentions that she is 38 during the course of "Seymour: an Introduction," which was set in 1959.

• Walter "Walt" Glass: American soldier killed in Occupied Japan shortly after the war when a stove he was packaging exploded, an event that Buddy Glass refuses to address. Walt is described by his girlfriend in "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut." He was also described in "Franny and Zooey" as being the only truly "lighthearted" son in the family. He was born in 1923.

• Waker Glass: A Roman Catholic monk of the Carthusian order. Born twelve minutes after his twin brother, Walt. Little is known about Waker, because, though he is mentioned in many of the stories, none have been written specifically about him.

• Zachary Martin "Zooey" Glass: Title character of "Zooey," in which he is approximately 25 years old, making his year of birth 1930. He is an actor, and (according to Buddy) the most attractive of all the children. Boo Boo describes him as "the blue-eyed Jewish-Irish Mohican scout who died in your arms at the roulette table at Monte Carlo." He is misanthropic, which he attributes to Seymour and Buddy's imposition of their college-age infatuation with Eastern mysticism on he and Franny as children.

• Frances "Franny" Glass: Title character of "Franny," is a college student and actress. In Franny and Zooey, she is depicted reading The Way of a Pilgrim, which contributes to a spiritual and emotional breakdown. She was born in 1935.

The children are all precocious, and have all appeared on a fictional radio quiz show called It's a Wise Child, which has, according to the stories, sent all seven Glass children through college. From 1927 to 1943, at least one of the children appeared on the show, beginning with Seymour and Buddy. It is mentioned in "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" that each child appeared on the show under a pseudonym.

The Glass family lives in New York City; all the children spent most of their childhood in an apartment on the Upper East Side.

Influences on other works

Some of the characters in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums were purportedly modeled after the Glass family, the children also being of Jewish and Irish ancestry. "Boo Boo" Glass is married to a Mr. Tannenbaum, as mentioned in the story "Down at the Dinghy."

Zack Martin of The Suite Life of Zach and Cody, is named after Zachary Martin Glass.

Zooey Deschanel is named after Zooey.

Will Stratton's album No Wonder, released in November 2009, includes a song called "For Franny Glass."

Larry Doyle's 2007 book I Love You, Beth Cooper mentions a girl named Zooey Bananafish.

References