“A good portion of the novel takes place during World War II, when [J.D.] Salinger, a member of the U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps, experienced horror after horror. . . . The Andrews Sisters appear as disembodied creatures in Sergeant Salinger. Sonny, as Salinger was called, had to identify each of the Andrews Sisters at a checkpoint in “The Green Hell” of the Hürtgen Forest, or he might have been arrested as a German spy. He rattles off their names—‘Patty, Laverne, and Maxene’—and gets through the checkpoint unscathed.”

Read more about and listen to Jerome’s playlist for Sergeant Salinger at Largehearted Boy—one of our favorite places on the Internet. It is, in the words of its curator David Gutowski, “a music blog featuring daily free and legal music downloads as well as news from the worlds of music, literature, and pop culture.” In the “Book Notes” series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.