Salinger

by David Shields

  We were initially skeptical of this claim, but two women independently confirmed that Salinger had this physical deformity, about which, one of them said, he was “incredibly embarrassed and frustrated. [At the time] I knew nothing about men’s bodies, but it was a big deal to him. It wasn’t an injury. It was an undescended testicle.”

  JOHN McMANUS: Before Pearl Harbor, and in the early stages of World War II, army doctors were quite selective with new recruits and draftees. When the doctors examined new men, they routinely rejected them for even the slightest physical or emotional problem. Many were turned away for heart murmurs, dental problems, hernias, and the like. In this kind of environment, a missing testicle would definitely have been grounds for immediate rejection. Later in the war, army standards were lowered. At that point, the service needed warm bodies and plenty of them. A missing testicle would not have mattered much anymore.

  PAUL ALEXANDER: He was so upset [about his I-B classification] that he wrote a letter to Colonel Milton Baker, the headmaster of the Valley Forge Military Academy, asking his advice on what to do. Baker suggested he join up as a volunteer.

  SHANE SALERNO: Instead, on February 15, 1941, Salinger and his Valley Forge friend Herbert Kauffman sailed to the West Indies on a nineteen-day cruise as members of the social staff for the Kungsholm, organizing games and dancing with the single women.

  PAUL ALEXANDER: Whether or not they were actually involved in the entertainment aspect of the cruise is not known. Even though it was a brief sojourn, the experience would stay with Salinger for years because it was the closest he ever came to the world of entertainment.

  J. D. SALINGER (“A Young Girl in 1941 with No Waist at All,” Mademoiselle, May 1947):

  The young man—his name was Ray Kinsella, and he was a member of the ship’s Junior Entertainment Committee—waited for Barbara at the railing on the portside of the promenade deck. Nearly all the passengers were ashore and, in the stillness and moonlight, it was a powerful place to be. The only sound in the night came from the Havana harbor water slucking gently against the sides of the ship. Through the moon mist the Kungsholm could be seen, anchored sleepy and rich, just a few hundred feet aft.

  —

  ARAM SAROYAN: Oona continued to date Salinger. On March 9, 1942, Eugene O’Neill wrote a postcard to his daughter, telling her he had been sick and thanking her for a picture of herself she had sent him. There were certainly plenty of pictures Oona had to pick from, since she was frequently in the papers. More than likely, this was not a press shot, as O’Neill hated what he regarded as the shallow, society-driven publicity his daughter was getting—a sentiment Salinger shared. These men in her life must have really become upset when, as had been expected, in the spring of 1942, on April 13, Oona was named Debutante of the Year. It would have been impossible for Salinger and O’Neill to miss the news. Stories of her selection, as well as photographs, were splashed across papers nationwide.

  BETTMAN ARCHIVES, photograph caption, 1942: Oona O’Neill, No. 1 deb of the year, wears luminous silver jewelry on this black-and-crêpe and velvet dress—a striking contrast for blackout purposes. The heart-shaped pins are handwrought sterling silver by Mary Gage and Marjorie Ralston.

  ASSOCIATED PRESS, photograph caption, 1942: Not “Glamour Girl No. 1,” but—in deference to the serious times hurting the Stork Club and other hideouts of the elite and near-elite—just plain “Debutante No. 1” is brunette Oona O’Neill, 17, daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill, elected as the 1942 successor to Brenda Frazier and Betty Cordon in the Stork Club’s annual ceremony. Five feet four and 125 pounds, Miss O’Neill is a student at the Brearley School, hoping to study drama.

  DAVID YAFFE: J. D. Salinger would have been more comfortable listening to old records than interacting with people. He didn’t want to be part of a scene.

  Oona O’Neill, Debutante of the Year, 1942.

  J. D. SALINGER (The Catcher in the Rye):

  There isn’t any night club in the world you can sit in for a long time unless you can at least buy some liquor and get drunk. Or unless you’re with some girl that really knocks you out.

  DAVID SHIELDS: While Salinger was spending nights at the Stork Club with Oona, he was continuing to develop The Catcher in the Rye, in which his alter ego, Holden Caulfield, wearing his “people shooting hat,” would take dead aim at WASP society.

  LEILA HADLEY LUCE: Salinger was a loner. He was not gregarious, but he wanted to be with Oona and he made concessions. It was a remarkable union, really, this classically beautiful young debutante dating this wisecracking, intellectual young man who was so above it all he had not even bothered to take college seriously.

  Oona O’Neill in her dressing room.

  J. D. SALINGER (“The Long Debut of Lois Taggett,” Story, September–October 1942):

  That winter Lois did her best to swish around Manhattan with the most photogenic of the young men who drank scotch-and-sodas in the God-and-Walter Winchell section of the Stork Club. She didn’t do badly. She had a good figure, dressed expensively and in good taste, and was considered Intelligent. That was the first season when Intelligent was the thing to be.

  —

  DAVID SHIELDS: By the spring of 1942, World War II had overwhelmed most other societal concerns, and Jerry Salinger was reassessed by the military. He was inducted—permanently, it seems.

  SHANE SALERNO: The Oona O’Neill–J. D. Salinger love affair was interrupted by his going into the army.

  DAVID SHIELDS: Salinger and Oona sent letters back and forth while he was in basic training, and his love for her deepened. Letters have a way of doing this to letter writers, especially to writers, especially to Salinger. He bragged to his army buddies, “This is my girlfriend,” and showed them modeling pictures of her.

  HARVEY JASON: Salinger wrote to Oona O’Neill on a daily basis. Ten-page letters, sometimes even longer. Now that’s pretty extreme. I can only think he must’ve been out of his mind with adoration of this woman. It speaks of such an obsessive personality.

  LEILA HADLEY LUCE: Now that they were separated, Jerry realized how thoroughly in love with Oona he was.

  J. D. SALINGER: I would marry Oona tomorrow if she would have me.

  DEBORAH DASH MOORE: For Jews, the war was about what was going on in the European theater. It was the war against Nazi Germany. They really wanted to fight Hitler. This was the motivation for many of the Jewish soldiers who volunteered. Someone like Salinger, who might have been given an opportunity to stay stateside and train other people, for example, would have wanted to go overseas. The choice to stay stateside would have meant that he couldn’t fulfill his desire to fight Hitler.

  J. D. SALINGER (“Last Day of the Last Furlough,” Saturday Evening Post, July 15, 1944):

  I want to kill so badly I can’t sit still. Isn’t that funny? I’m notoriously yellow. All my life I’ve even avoided fist fights, always getting out of them by talking fast. Now I want to shoot it out with people.

  ALEX KERSHAW: Reclassified and drafted, Salinger reported to Fort Dix on April 27, 1942. He was twenty-three. More than likely, his serial number bore the classification of “H.”

  DEBORAH DASH MOORE: When they were inducted, American soldiers were given a choice of what religious affiliation they wanted. They could take a “P” for Protestant, which would be marked on their dog tag. Or they could take a “C” for Catholic. If you were a Jew, they didn’t give you a “J”; they offered you an “H,” which stood for “Hebrew.” Now, “Hebrew” was a classification that had been used in immigration to identify Jews from many different countries. It was used during World War II as well, even though a “J” might have made more sense. In many ways, “Hebrew” represented an older, “nicer” way of talking about Jews. To put the “H” on the dog tag was a very significant decision; some guys regularly took it off. Later, during the fighting in Europe, some never flew with their dog tags. In other cases, guys always kept it on because they wanted the Germans to know, if they were ca
ptured, that it was Jews up there dropping the bombs.

  PAUL ALEXANDER: Salinger decided he wanted to go to Officer Candidate School. To make such a step, which many recruits could not do, he needed letters of reference, and solicited Colonel Baker and Whit Burnett to write these letters.

  COLONEL MILTON G. BAKER:

  I am of the opinion that [Salinger] possesses all of the traits and character which will qualify him as an outstanding officer in the army. Private Salinger has a very attractive personality, is mentally keen, has above-average athletic ability, is a diligent worker, and thoroughly loyal and dependable. . . . I believe he would be a genuine credit to the country.

  WHIT BURNETT:

  I have known Jerry Salinger, who has taken work under me at Columbia University, for three years, and he is a person of imagination, intelligence, and capable of quick and decisive action. He is a responsible individual and it seems he would be a credit to an officer’s rank if he sets his mind in that direction.

  J. D. SALINGER (“The Hang of It,” Collier’s, July 12, 1941):

  The sarge almost had an attack of apoplexy. “Pettit,” he said, “you got no place in this man’s army. You got six feet. You got six hands. Everybody else only got two! ”

  “I’ll get the hang of it,” said Pettit.

  “Don’t say that to me again. Or I’ll kill ya. I’ll akchally kill ya, Pettit. Because I hatecha, Pettit. You hear me? I hatecha!”

  “Gee,” said Pettit. “No kidding?”

  “No kidding, brother,” said the sarge.

  “Wait’ll I get the hang of it,” said Pettit. “You’ll see. No kidding. Boy, I like the Army. Some day I’ll be a colonel or something. No kidding.”

  DAVID SHIELDS: The army turned down Salinger’s application for Officer Candidate School early in the summer of 1942.

  SHANE SALERNO: When “The Long Debut of Lois Taggett” is published in the September 1942 issue of Story, Salinger writes, in his author’s note, “I’m in the Officers, First Sergeants and Instructors Prep School of the Signal Corps, determined to get that ole message through. . . . The men in my tent—though a nice damn bunch—are always eating oranges or listening to quiz programs, and I haven’t written a line since my re-classification and induction.”

  ALEX KERSHAW: He was instead sent to Army Air Force basic flying school in Bainbridge, Georgia, where he taught English. In 1943 he was transferred to a base near Nashville, Tennessee, and promoted to staff sergeant, but he was still rankled by his failure to become a commissioned officer. He was re-stationed to Patterson Field in Fairfield, Ohio, and then to Fort Holabird, Maryland, where he became a special agent in the Counter Intelligence Corps.

  Salinger, Air Corps photo, 1943.

  EBERHARD ALSEN: Around this time, Salinger wrote to Whit Burnett, “These people don’t understand that I’m not one of them, that I’m really just a neat infestation of pus. They’ve got me tagged as a Quiet, Intelligent Guy with one of them dry sense of humors.” In a later letter to Burnett, he would say, “My mind is never really with these people. I’ve been a short story writer since I was seventeen.”

  ALEX KERSHAW: Salinger’s writing during this time, now that his life was consumed by the army, was largely about his military experience, including the short stories “Both Parties Concerned,” “Soft-Boiled Sergeant,” “This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise,” and “Last Day of the Last Furlough”—all of which would be published in the coming months in Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post.

  DAVID SHIELDS: One story that wasn’t published anywhere is “The Last and Best of the Peter Pans,” which Salinger withdrew from Story magazine without explanation, was never published anywhere, and is now housed at Princeton University’s Firestone Library (where it’s one of the few items of Salingeriana that can’t even be photographed), and per his instructions it can’t be published until fifty years after his death.

  Prefiguring the extended bathroom colloquy in “Zooey,” the story is built around a lengthy conversation between Vincent Caulfield and his mother, an actress named Mary Moriarty. She hides a questionnaire the draft board has sent him; he erupts when he finds it, although, as the conversation continues, it becomes increasingly apparent that she was simply trying to prevent from happening to him what has already happened to her other son, Kenneth, who was killed in action. A third brother, Holden, is alluded to but remains offstage. Vincent’s younger sister, Phoebe, wears a coat that he finds adorable. So, too, Vincent mentions his baseball mitt, which is covered in poetry, foreshadowing Allie’s glove in The Catcher in the Rye. Even more striking is the story’s ending, in which Vincent realizes how sorry he feels for academicians locked away from life, for unkempt soldiers, for everyone who falls short of excellence, for himself for excoriating his mother when all she was trying to do was lock him away from the entrance to hell.

  Under the circumstances, it’s impossible to read the story as anything other than Salinger’s ferocious love letter to his mother, who worries so much, particularly over kids who are about to fall off a cliff.

  J. D. SALINGER (“This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise,” Esquire, October 1945):

  I am inside the truck, too, sitting on the protection strap, trying to keep out of the crazy Georgia rain, waiting for the lieutenant from Special Services, waiting to get tough. I’m scheduled to get tough any minute now. There are thirty-four men in this here vee-hickle, and only thirty are supposed to go to the dance. Four must go. I plan to knife the first four men on my right, simultaneously singing Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder at the top of my voice, to drown out their silly cries. Then I’ll assign a detail of two men (preferably college graduates) to push them off this here vee-hickle into the good wet Georgia red clay. It might be worth forgetting that I’m one of the Ten Toughest Men who ever sat on this protection strap. I could lick my weight in Bobbsey Twins.

  LEILA HADLEY LUCE: Oona loved hearing from Jerry; she loved his letters. They were seductive, delicious, enchanting letters. They were so wonderful that Oona even lent them to Carol Marcus so that Carol could copy them and send them to Bill [Saroyan] to try to seduce Bill and to impress Bill with how well she wrote.

  JOHN LEGGETT: When Bill [Saroyan] got drafted in the army and sent to basic training in Sacramento, Oona and Carol and Bill’s cousin went off on a gypsy trip down the [Baja] California peninsula that involved nude swimming and other shenanigans. Bill took an immediate dislike to Oona. He felt she was less than ladylike. He felt she had too much control over Carol; he wanted to control Carol. Bill also thought Oona was a bad influence on Carol. Bill knew she was O’Neill’s daughter, but he was critical of her. He thought she didn’t keep herself clean.

  ARAM SAROYAN: Carol, who’d been to Dalton [an exclusive private school in Manhattan] and was very articulate and funny, was still a little daunted by the idea of having to write letters to this famous writer [Saroyan]. At the time, Bill was at the height of his career, as famous as Fitzgerald had been in the 1920s.

  Carol cribbed all these witty lines from Salinger’s letters to Oona. The only line that I actually remember my mother [Carol] quoting from one of these letters from Salinger was, “I just sent my typewriter to the laundry.” I can imagine my dad reading these letters in basic training and saying, “Jesus, I thought she was just a sweet kid. She’s one of these ‘clever’ literary women. I don’t want anything to do with that.” He finally got the day off, she visited him, and he was strangely subdued. Carol didn’t know what was going on.

  JOHN LEGGETT: Bill finally figured out that a girl as simple as Carol couldn’t have written such elaborate prose. She confessed she had borrowed the endearments from Jerry’s letters to Oona.

  —

  DAVID SHIELDS: Combat and carnage were still a year away. Salinger had been writing since 1940, and many of his stories were published in popular magazines, but if according to Kafka (who would become a crucial writer to Salinger), “A book should be an axe to break the frozen sea within us,” Salinger didn’t e
ven know yet that his sea was frozen. His mind was still stocked “with some black neckties.” He was contemptuous of the superficial society that surrounded him at the same time that he yearned to be exalted as one of its paragons.

  There is no knowledge without pain; in his precombat stories, there is “no fire” yet “between the words” (as Salinger would later say to his writer-friend A. E. Hotchner about his stories). Still, Salinger is trying to get there. In the 1940 story “Go See Eddie,” he repeats in order to dismantle the word “grand,” a technique Holden will take to a postwar extreme: “You and your grand persons. You know more god damn grand persons.” Salinger thinks he understands that human self-destruction is at the center of the world (“The Hang of It,” 1941: “Every fuse has two ends; the one that’s lighted and the one that’s clubby with the T.N.T.”), but he hasn’t a clue; the story, written to jibe with the rising patriotism underlying the country’s imminent involvement in World War II, was reprinted in The Kitbook for Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines.

  He’s trying to buy distance from the commercial culture to which he was an avid contributor. “The Heart of a Broken Story” not only mocks the formulaic boy-meets-girl stories that appeared with regularity in the “slicks” but is also an early warning of what would become, later on, his increasing reluctance to manipulate his characters; in June ’42, he wrote to Burnett, “I’m tired—my God, so tired—of leaving them all broken on the page with just ‘The End’ written underneath.” Salinger doesn’t love his own psychosis yet, so, in “The Long Debut of Lois Taggett,” neither can Lois; she dismisses her husband when he says he’s seeing a psychoanalyst. The war has begun and Salinger was initially turned down; Lois’s adorable baby boy suffers crib death, which is Salinger’s response to the war: he wants you to think he already knows that grief is the only true emotion that unites humanity.