Book Club: Diagnosing Holden

Book Club: Diagnosing Holden
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Last week when we held our Book Club discussion on Catcher in the Rye, we fell down a rabbit hole called Holden Caulfield. It's difficult not to spend an entire month dissecting this enchanting, erratic character, and we've vowed not to, after all there's so much more to talk about with an iconic book like this. However, one very specific topic kept coming up. We couldn't read a comment, respond to a tweet, or carry on one conversation without everyone coming back to Holden's mental state: Is he well or not?

We could argue that Holden's a bright teenager stuck in a monochromatic world. We could say he's been through the trauma of the death of his brother. We could speculate that he's just having a really rough weekend. But we wanted to get to the bottom of this conversation.

So, on Wednesday, October 24th at 4pm ET we have special guest Matthew Erlich, MD, a psychiatrist-researcher at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in the Division of Mental Health Services. We're going to explore some diagnosis options, talk about Holden's history, and read a few passages that really give clues into his personality.

You can watch or join our hangout at 4pm on this page: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15/huffpost-book-club-catcher-rye_n_1968204.html

And we're accepting questions and thoughts from you in the comments section of that same page, as well as on Twitter with the hashtag #hpbookclub.

How are you enjoying the book so far? Is this your first time reading it? Send us an email at hpbookclub@huffingtonpost.com and let us know.

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