"Catcher caught"

It has been nearly a year since J.D. Salinger died, a writer whose most famous work, The "Catcher in the Rye" will forever stand as a memorial to the pangs of adolescence. For her third book, "Catcher, Caught", which came out on Tuesday, local writer Sarah Honenberger channels Salinger's classic and offers an affecting meditation on family, growing up and medical ethics.
Eating in the Light Well on Main Street in Orange, Honenberger appears to be the opposite of the reclusive Salinger, constantly visited by other diners and answering calls of, "Hey Sally," with a wave and a smile. She's dug into the community and opts to set her tale of youthful discovery in the wetlands of Essex County instead of the streets of New York.
Her character, Daniel Landon, is preparing to die. A recent leukemia diagnosis has derailed his aspirations of starting the tenth grade, and while most parents would prescribe to the latest advancements in treatment, the Landons elect to battle Daniel's leukemia with herbs and natural remedies. The most common refuge in his increasingly stressful world are the troubled pages of The "Catcher in the Rye".
Honenberger said she based the novel on a similar case of parents rejecting chemotherapy for their cancer-stricken child. "White Lies," Honenberger's first novel, also depicts the influence of medicine on a family.
"After White Lies, I didn't want to write another book on medical drama," she said. "But someone showed me this story and it just stayed with me."
Told through Daniel's eyes, "Catcher, Caught" opens, "When I first met Holden Caulfield I didn't know I was dying." The most powerful literary characters seem to exist beyond the confines of the page and in the minds of readers can appear to walk around in the world of the living, which was partly what Honenberger was calling on when constructing the impossible relationship of Daniel and Holden.
"I tried to have him feel like Holden was someone he could have known," she said. "He looks to Holden as an example. Teenagers look at other teenagers for guidance and they want to do what others are doing."
Honeberger is neither male nor adolescent. Her children are grown and it's difficult for her to view Caulfield as anything but a troubled young man, the mother in her won't allow it. But this is the voice she chose to write, a 15-year-old battling both the pressures of discovering his identity and knowing that any self discovery could be short-lived because of an aggressive cancer.
"I worked at it a lot," said Honenberger. "I really tried to get in his head. Sixteen-year-old boys are a mess. They feel like they're supposed to know everything but are still figuring it out."
Daniel's problems, though, are unlike those of his contemporaries. He stoically believes his cancer will kill him and holds out little hope for the cocktail of treatments he receives. Death doesn't appear to anger him so much as missing out on the activities of youth, the running, swimming and even schoolwork of the kids his age. Early in the novel Daniel rhetorically asks why adults view the feelings of kids as insignificant and judging by the fortitude she writes into her main character and the magnitude of his issues, Honenberger appears to be on his side.
Despite a sizeable gap in age and vast differences in formative influences, Honenberger, believes she's got the voice of Daniel down, perhaps to the resentment of her much younger editors.
"My editor, who is 28, is, I think, bothered that a 57-year-old woman can write the voice of a 15-year-old so well," she said.
"Catcher, Caught" marks Honenberger's call up to the literary majors. This novel will be her first with a major publisher and her first distributed nationally. She said she likes working with a larger publisher, because her editors have given her more substantial edits than she's received in the past, but that it's strange having an editor working on multiple books at the same time.
"It's a big change to go from a publisher that puts out 20 books a year from one that maybe puts out five," she said.
"Catcher, Caught" came to publisher Amazon Encore by way of Amazon's breakthrough novel contest, for which it was a semifinalist.
For Honenberger, writing is a daily necessity. She typically spends the first three hours of the day writing and once a year takes a month-long retreat to Florida to write, which is how she completed the majority of "Catcher, Caught".
"Days when I don't write I'm miserable," she said. "Writing is such an anti-social activity; I sometimes have to force myself to socialize. When I'm on the retreats I'll be in a rhythm and can spend 10 straight hours writing."
Honenberger's opening line in "Catcher, Caught" takes on an eerie significance in her own life. When she first met Daniel, or rather created him, she didn't know she was dying. After completing the novel more than a year ago, Honenberger was diagnosed with cancer. With her cancer in remission, but still receiving periodic treatments, Honenberger said battling the illness was harder than she ever imagined.
"Before, if I heard someone had cancer I thought of it as not that big of a deal and would send a card or something" said Honenberger. "Now I know that cancer is a very serious thing. You also think, 'This could never happen to me.' Once after getting chemo I asked my husband why they stick me in there with all those really sick people and he said, 'But you are really sick.' I didn't see myself that way."
Now Honenberger shows no signs of the disease. Full of energy and plenty to say, Honenberger speaks with the passion and excitement of someone who has been to the edge and back and is now launching her first nationally released book.