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Holden is expelled from the prestigious Pencey Prep School for failing almost all subjects (except English). Instead of waiting for his parents, he flees to New York three days early, planning to wander the city before he has to admit his failure at home. He spends 48 hours in the city in solitude, wandering the streets, hotels, clubs and parks, meeting various people - former roommate Stradlater (with whom he fought over his girlfriend Jane Gallagher), ex-girlfriend Sally Hayes, sister Phoebe (the only person he truly loves and understands), old professor Antolini, nuns, prostitute Sunny, pimps, taxi drivers and so on.

Holden despises "phonies" - adults, teachers, movie stars, the school system - everything he considers artificial, hypocritical and superficial. He is sensitive, cynical, but deeply vulnerable: he is still mourning the death of his younger brother Allie (from leukemia), he is afraid of growing up and losing his innocence. The most famous moment is his fantasy of becoming a "catcher in the rye" - a guardian of children running through a cornfield and saving them from falling off a cliff into the abyss of adulthood (an allusion to Robert Burns' poem "Comin' Thro' the Rye", which he mishears).

After a series of disappointments, failed attempts at connection and a psychological breakdown (drunkenness, illness, suicidal thoughts), Holden returns home, meets Phoebe and realizes that he cannot escape life. The novel ends openly: Holden in the present says that he does not know what will happen next, but does not want to talk too much about "sad things".

The book is a classic of coming-of-age literature, an elegy to alienation, loss of innocence and the search for authenticity in a "fake" world. Holden's voice - colloquial, ironic, emotional - has become an archetype of teenage rebellion and vulnerability, influencing generations of readers.