William Forrester is a fictitious character, there are some noticeable parallels between his life and that of the American author Jerome David (J. D. Salinger) :
- Both Forrester and Salinger are notoriously reclusive authors.
- In the movie Forrester blocked a biography of himself that the character Prof. Robert Crawford was going to have published. Salinger did the same thing through a lawsuit.
- Both also only wrote one book that is wildly popular: Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Forrester's Avalon Landing
- In his Glass family stories, Salinger's narrator, Buddy Glass, is obsessed with his dead older brother Seymour. In the movie, Jamal, discussing Forrester's novel, tells Forrester that he thinks there was somebody else. Forrester also has a brother who is dead.
is often precipitated by the fear of having a panic attack in a setting from which there is no easy means of escape.Agoraphobia
William Forrester who had locked himself up in his house to avoid public or unfamiliar places. This anxiety disorder is commonly known as "agoraphobia" that confines people to their homes as the safest place.
