UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS - (7)
1. "The Children's Echelon." - (26 pp. of double-spaced typescript with the
by-line J. D. Salinger). A two-part story in the form of eleven diary entries
by Bernice Herndon with the first entry on January 12, her 18th birthday, and
the last on March 25 of the same but unspecified year. With the war in the
background, Bernice changes her opinion about almost everything she
mentions-her friends, family, and the war. In one entry, Bernice, like Holden
Caulfield, mentions that she loved to watch children at the merry-go-round.
Princeton's Firestone Library.
2. "The Magic Foxhole." - (21 pp. of double-spaced typescript). Told in first
person by a compulsive-talking soldier, identified only as Garrity, to another
hitchhiking soldier called Mac, whom Garrity has picked up in a jeep near "the
Beach" soon after D-Day, this story recounts Garrity's association with a
soldier named Lewis Gardner, who suffers severe battle fatigue. Gardner now
stands on the beach and waits to be evacuated. As the story ends, Garrity,
presumably eager to tell this story again or perhaps another one about a
nurse, yells to another hitchhiker. The dramatic monologue-like story
suggests that Garrity suffers from battle fatigue, but to a lesser degree than
Gardner. Gardner is wrecked by the war. In combat, he keeps on meeting a
ghost soldier dressed in a strange, futuristic uniform. Gardner interrogates
him and discovers that the 'soldier' is his own yet-to-be-born son, a boy
called Earl. Earl is now aged twenty-one and is a combatant, it seems, in
World War III. Gardner decides that he must kill this phantom offspring: If
Earl dies, maybe the next war will never happen. The story ends with Gardner,
still hallucinating, confined in a military hospital, a victim of what the
authorities call battle fatigue. Princeton's Firestone Library.
3. "Two Lonely Men." - (27 pp. of double-spaced typescript). An unnamed
narrator, who worked at Ground School as a Morse Code Instructor at a United
States Army base in the South, tells the story of a developing friendship
between Master Sergeant Charles Maydee and Captain Huggins. Their friendship
grows with nightly games of gin rummy until Captain Huggins sets his wife up
in a nearby hotel and moves in with her. Maydee and Huggins do not see much
of each other then until Huggins' wife reveals to her husband that she has
been having an affair three times a week with Bernie Farr. Maydee promises to
intercede with Huggins' wife, but Maydee apparently begins having an affair
with her (a situation similar to that of Arthur, Lee, and Joanie in Pretty
Mouth and Green My Eyes). As the story ends, Maydee tells the narrator that
he has asked for a transfer because he doesn't like Huggins. Princeton's
Firestone Library.
4. "The Birthday Boy." - (9 pp.). The "Birthday Boy" manuscript is nine pages
long and undated. The story is set in a hospital. A young man, Ray, is
visited by his girlfriend, Ethel, on his 22nd birthday. Ray is recovering from
an illness that, while unspecified, seems to have something to do with
alcoholism. The story consists primarily of dialogue. Ray gropes Ethel, then
tries to persuade her to bring him liquor so he may "test himself." When she
refuses, he curses her then orders her to leave. The story concludes with
Ethel riding the hospital elevator to the ground floor, chilled "in all the
damp spots." The ms has several editorial corrections on the first page. One
note reads "Hold. Consult." Another note, partially erased, asks that the ms
be "set up in 12 point." The ms also has Salinger's 1133 Park Ave address on
its first page. Univ of TX at Austin.
5. "Paula." - (10 pp.). The manuscript is untitled, undated and has a number
of authorial edits and emendations. The manuscript is less a story than a
series of scenes not yet sewn together. The central characters are a couple,
Frank and Paula Hancher. Paula claims to be pregnant and decides that she
will stay in bed the entire course of her pregnancy. She directs her husband
to tell friends and neighbors that she's gone to help her ailing sister in
Ohio. Months pass. The Hanchers continue the ruse for nearly a year.
Ultimately, Frank comes home, finds the bedroom door locked. Paula claims
she's having the child. Shortly thereafter, she claims she's had the child
and now needs a crib, baby clothes, etc. However, she won't let Frank in the
room. Frank provides the items she needs. Then, several days later,
frustrated that he's still not being let inside, he breaks the door down and
finds Paula in the crib. Univ of TX at Austin. Donald Fiene notes that this
story was sold to Stag magazine in 1942.
6. "The Last and Best of the Peter Pans." - (12 pp. of double-spaced
typescript). Written from the point of view of Vincent Caulfield, older
brother of Holden and Phoebe, and with references to a dead brother named
Kenneth, the story focuses on a conversation between Vincent and his
mother-Mary Moriarity, and actress. Their talk occurs because Vincent found
his questionnaire from the draft board that his mother had hidden. The
conversation, which involves Mary's concern for Vincent and Vincent's concern
for his family, ends with a reference to her wanting to keep a child from
going over a cliff and Vincent's feeling sorry for various people just as
Holden misses various people at the end of The Catcher in the Rye. Princeton's
Firestone Library.
7. "The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls." - (18 pp. of double-spaced typescript).
Like the narrators in Sherwood Anderson's stories I'm a Fool and I Want to
Know Why who tell their tales because they want to set things straight,
Vincent Caulfield writes of his relationship with one of his younger brothers,
Kenneth, and of Kenneth's death. Included in the story are Kenneth's
expression of love for Holden and Phoebe, Kenneth's anger at an adult for
calling Holden crazy, and a letter to Kenneth from Holden at Camp Goodcrest,
in which Holden complains about life and people at camp. Even though he does
not call them phonies, Holden cites the hypocrisy of the adults at camp.
Donald Fiene comments as follows on this story: "Sold to Woman's Home
Companion in 1947 or 1948. [According to Knox Burger, editor of Gold Medal
Books and former fiction editor of Collier's, the publisher objected to the
story as too 'downbeat'-after the fiction editor of WHC had bought it.]
Later, 1950 or 1951, the same man rejected it for Collier's too. But at about
this time Salinger withdrew the story, which is an early experiment with the
Glass family and concerns the death of one of the younger children. Princeton
library.
UNAVAILABLE MANUSCRIPTS - (20 titles)
1. "The Survivors." 1940.
2. "The Fishermen." 1941.
3. "The Lovely Dead Girl At Table Six." 1941.
4. "The Kissless Life of Reilly." 1942.
5. "The Broken Children." 1943.
6. "Rex Passard on the Planet Mars." 1943.
7. "Bitsy." 1943.
8. "Am I Banging My Head Against the Wall?" 1943.
9. "Total War Diary." 1944.
10. "Boy Standing in Tennessee." 1944.
11. "What Babe Saw" 1944. (or "Ooh-La-La!")
12. "The Male Goodbye." 1946.
13. "A Young Man in a Stuffed Shirt." 1959.
14. "What Got Into Curtis in the Woodshed." 19??. A story which involves
"Curtis" punching out all the windows in the "woodshed."
15. "The Daughter of the Late, Great Man." 1959.
16. "Lunch For Three." 19??.
17. "Monologue For A Watery Highball." 19??.
18. "I Went To School With Adolf Hitler." 19??.
19. "A Summer Accident." 19??
20. "The Boy In The People Shooting Hat." 19??.
...wouldn't it be great...to run into a copy of a book called 27 Stories by J.
D. Salinger somewhere on the internet or local bookstore?
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Received on Tue Oct 7 12:58:42 2003
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