John Scalzi: Holden Caulfield in middle age. Like Scalzi, I never got the appeal of “Catcher in the Rye.” And my reasons were similar to his: I grew up reading science fiction.
If you were going to give me a teenage hero, give me Heinlein’s Starman Jones: He traveled the galaxy and memorized entire books of log tables and became Captain of a starship (for procedural reasons, granted). All Holden did was bitch, bitch, bitch.