Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
J. D. Salinger, 1963
★ 4.10 from 54.7k ratings on Goodreads
Salinger's Glass family at their funniest and most tender: a wedding morning, a borrowed diary, and the memory of the brother they all measure themselves against. A warm, witty wedding-morning voice carries family tenderness, art and faith, with nostalgia humming under the talk.
Feels like tenderness, wonder and melancholy. About family, art and faith.
Who it’s for
You may enjoy this if you like Salinger's Glass family, talky literary fiction, and affectionate portraits of siblings. The second novella is often called rambling and self-indulgent, so readers who want a tightly shaped story may find it frustrating.
Why read it
It offers a funny, tender look at family and art, and a diary that brings the Glass siblings close without requiring the other stories.
A page from the book
Someone reads your job title back to you and quietly disagrees.
Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It’s never been anything but your religion. What readers say
Readers often express deep affection for the Glass family and Salinger’s writing, along with sadness and nostalgia. Many find the first novella delightful but are sharply divided over the second, which some call frustratingly rambling and self-indulgent while others value its emotional depth.
J. D. Salinger.The title comes from a fragment of Sappho's wedding song: 'Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man.'
Books that feel like this
More by J. D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger, 1951
A prep-school dropout drifts through New York for a few days, allergic to phonies and desperate to protect someone younger.
Franny and Zooey
J. D. Salinger, 1961
A college actress and her brother argue about prayer, applause and how to be a person without performing one.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters for me?
- You may enjoy this if you like Salinger's Glass family, talky literary fiction, and affectionate portraits of siblings. The second novella is often called rambling and self-indulgent, so readers who want a tightly shaped story may find it frustrating.
- What is Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters like?
- A warm, witty wedding-morning voice carries family tenderness, art and faith, with nostalgia humming under the talk. Feels like tenderness, wonder and melancholy. About family, art and faith.
- What should I read after Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters?
- If you liked Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, try To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (David Sedaris) and Emily of New Moon (L. M. Montgomery).
A taste of the feed
The particular guilt of a well-behaved person in a police state.
I am a person who feels guilty for crimes I have not committed, or have not committed in years. The police search the train station for a serial rapist and I cover my face with a newspaper, wondering if maybe I did it in my sleep. The last thing I stole was an eight-track tape, but to this day I’m unable to enter a store without feeling like a shoplifter. It’s all the anxiety with none of the free stuff.
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim · David Sedaris
Some families begin with a wedding; this one begins with a bear.
The summer my father bought the bear, none of us was born — we weren’t even conceived: not Frank, the oldest; not Franny, the loudest; not me, the next; and not the youngest of us, Lilly and Egg. My father and mother were hometown kids who knew each other all their lives, but their “union,” as Frank always called it, hadn’t taken place when Father bought the bear.
The Hotel New Hampshire · John Irving
What parents quietly pack away, and never mention afterward.
She suspects that, to be a good parent, she must pack away the mothering part of herself into a box and gently close the lid on it. She had not realised this is what would be required of her, had not seen it coming. And yet she will do so willingly. Would you lay down your life for your child? the world silently asks. Yes, she’s done this. But she hadn’t known there would be a second reckoning, where this would eventually mean laying down the arms of motherhood: caution, foreseeing, checking, reminding, nurturing, openly caring.
The Names · Florence Knapp
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