This is what 16-year-old Holden Caufield has to say about his 10-year-old sister, Phoebe, in chapter ten of J.D. Salinger’s classic The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger’s Phoebe is a character so steeped in duality that scholars still wonder about her today, seventy years after the novel’s publication. She is at once an innocent little child who wears elephant pajamas and sleeps with her mouth open, and a thoughtful, wise counselor to her older brother, Holden, Salinger’s persistently confused and angst-ridden adolescent protagonist.
Which brings us to PhoebeNewYork, a modern-day study in similar contrasts. Her balloon-like head is that of a cartoon sprite, innocent yet oddly alluring, a little bit like Betty Boop. Her body is fashion-week perfect, a grown-up woman in hose and heels. And the street-corner counsel she dispenses is sagacious in its simplicity. She’s a lot like Salinger’s Phoebe.
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