Who this is responding to an interviewer?
Q: Salinger’s protagonist is driven mad by the ugliness in life. What drives you nuts?
A: The human predicament: the fact that we’re living in a nightmare that everyone is making excuses for and having to find ways to sugarcoat. And the fact that life, at its best, is a pretty horrible proposition. But people’s behavior makes it much, much worse than it has to be.
The answer is here.