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D.B. is Holden’s older brother, a Hollywood screenwriter. Holden both clearly respects D.B.’s talent as a writer and harbors great resentment toward him for choosing to move to Hollywood, which he considers selling out and becoming phony. He even refers to D.B. as a “prostitute” for choosing Hollywood over literary work. In Holden’s mind, D.B. has rejected an intimate and passionate form of writing in favor of a more lucrative use of his talent that is less genuine. D.B. selling out in this way is particularly hurtful to Holden because of how much he clearly idolized his brother. Holden still lists D.B.’s short story collection as his favorite book and an author D.B. recommended to him as his favorite author. When he feels lonely and wants to talk to someone, D.B. is one of the two people Holden considers calling. He goes to a bar in the hip, artistic neighborhood of Greenwich Village because D.B. used to frequent it. Holden has modeled some of his ideals of adulthood on D.B., and therefore D.B. revealing that he, too, can engage in adult phoniness disillusions Holden.
