V mail

[jporter]

On 9/14/00, Margaret "Peggy" Salinger was interviewed on the radio by
Christopher Lydon, discussing *Dream Catcher* her memoir of life with her
father, J.D. Salinger:
        
http://realserver.bu.edu:8080/ramgen/w/b/wbur/connection/audio/2000/09/con09
14b.rm

When asked which of her father's works she liked the best, she
uncategorically stated that she liked his short stories the best. She said,
"My favorite is a story called _For Esme with Love and Squalor_" stating:

        *For Esme...* uhm begins with a man in England about
        to leave, uh, he's preparing- he's a counterintelligence
        officer, as was my father, preparing for D Day, as
        was my father. The story then goes silent. It picks
        up again right after V-E Day... and this man is
        vomiting into a wastebasket...

Here are some selected excerpts from "For Esme with Love and Squalor" (the
Bantam Book edition of _Nine Stories_ by J.D. Salinger ):

"...I could hear behind my back the uncomradely scratching of many fountain
pens on many sheets of V-mail paper. Abruptly, with nothing special in mind,
I came away from the window and put on my raincoat.... Then, after
synchoronizing my wristwatch with the clock in the latrine, I walked down
the long cobblestone hill into town. I ignored the flashes of lightening all
around me. They either had your number on them or they didn't." p.88-89.

"...'I thought Americans despised tea,' she said.
        It wasn't the observation of a smart aleck but that of a truth-lover
or statistics-lover. I replied that some of us never drink anything *but*
tea." p92.

"...'You go to that secret intelligence school on the hill, don't you?' She
inquired cooly." p.94.


[Later in the story, from a house in Bavaria several weeks post
V-E Day in the "squalor" of the occupied zone]


"...With his hand, he shielded his eyes for a moment against the harsh,
watty glare from the naked bulb over the table." p104.

"...He ached from head to foot, all zones of pain seemingly interdependent.
He was rather like a Christmas tree whose lights, wired in series, must all
go out if even one bulb is defective." p.106.


jody

"I think John McLeonard (sic) said it best in his review on CBS Sunday
Morning, he said my father was a *serial true believer.* I wish I had said
that!" (Margaret Salinger, op.cit.)