Basil
04-08-2005, 04:48 AM
J. D. Salinger: "For Esmé -- With Love and Squalor" (http://todayinliterature.com/today.asp?Search_Date=4/8/2005)
http://todayinliterature.com/assets/photos/s/j.d.salinger-190x265.jpg
On this day in 1950, J. D. Salinger's "For Esmé -- With Love and Squalor" was published in The New Yorker. Though still fifteen months away from the fame of The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger had many stories published in the high-circulation magazines at this point, and had drawn increasing attention from critics, fans and even Hollywood. The publication of "Esmé" would accelerate this process, Salinger saying that his story of Sergeant X, on his way to war and crack-up, and Esmé, well on her way to adulthood, brought more mail in two weeks than anything else he'd written. This is the moment of their last words, Esmé reminding the Sergeant that he has promised her a story:
. . . "Make it extremely squalid and moving," she suggested. "Are you at all acquainted with squalor?"
I said not exactly but that I was getting better acquainted with it, in one form or another, all the time, and that I'd do my best to come up to her specifications. We shook hands.
"Isn't it a pity that we didn't meet under less extenuating circumstances?"
I said it was, I said it certainly was.
"Goodbye," Esmé said. "I hope you return from the war with all your faculties intact."
I thanked her, and said a few other words, and then watched her leave the tearoom. She left it slowly, reflectively, testing the ends of her hair for dryness.
The story's popularity would also accelerate Salinger's lifelong attempt to control or run from fame. In 1953 Salinger agreed to allow his British publisher, the respected Hamish Hamilton, to bring out his edition of Nine Stories under the title For Esmé -- With Love and Squalor. When the collection did not do well in England, Hamilton sold the paperback rights to Ace Books, a specialist in cheap, mass-market imprints. In the mid-50s, they reprinted the collection with a cover that featured a tacky blonde and a lurid blurb-line: "Explosive and Absorbing -- A Painful and Pitiable Gallery of Men, Women, Adolescents and Children." By the time Salinger discovered what had happened it was too late for any intervention, besides tearing up his remaining contracts with Hamilton.
http://todayinliterature.com/assets/photos/s/j.d.salinger-190x265.jpg
On this day in 1950, J. D. Salinger's "For Esmé -- With Love and Squalor" was published in The New Yorker. Though still fifteen months away from the fame of The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger had many stories published in the high-circulation magazines at this point, and had drawn increasing attention from critics, fans and even Hollywood. The publication of "Esmé" would accelerate this process, Salinger saying that his story of Sergeant X, on his way to war and crack-up, and Esmé, well on her way to adulthood, brought more mail in two weeks than anything else he'd written. This is the moment of their last words, Esmé reminding the Sergeant that he has promised her a story:
. . . "Make it extremely squalid and moving," she suggested. "Are you at all acquainted with squalor?"
I said not exactly but that I was getting better acquainted with it, in one form or another, all the time, and that I'd do my best to come up to her specifications. We shook hands.
"Isn't it a pity that we didn't meet under less extenuating circumstances?"
I said it was, I said it certainly was.
"Goodbye," Esmé said. "I hope you return from the war with all your faculties intact."
I thanked her, and said a few other words, and then watched her leave the tearoom. She left it slowly, reflectively, testing the ends of her hair for dryness.
The story's popularity would also accelerate Salinger's lifelong attempt to control or run from fame. In 1953 Salinger agreed to allow his British publisher, the respected Hamish Hamilton, to bring out his edition of Nine Stories under the title For Esmé -- With Love and Squalor. When the collection did not do well in England, Hamilton sold the paperback rights to Ace Books, a specialist in cheap, mass-market imprints. In the mid-50s, they reprinted the collection with a cover that featured a tacky blonde and a lurid blurb-line: "Explosive and Absorbing -- A Painful and Pitiable Gallery of Men, Women, Adolescents and Children." By the time Salinger discovered what had happened it was too late for any intervention, besides tearing up his remaining contracts with Hamilton.