J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [136]
Salinger applied the same controlling attitude to the collection’s title. In November 1952, he chose nine of his best pieces—including the just-finished “Teddy”—for the anthology. Determined that no single story should label the entire collection, he then expressed to Jamie Hamilton his refusal to consider any title such as A Perfect Day for Bananafish—and Other Stories. Salinger went on to speculate, “I may end up just calling it Nine Stories.”4 Hamilton was appalled at the idea. The kind of title that Salinger so adamantly opposed was exactly what Hamilton had envisioned. Remarkably, he planned to call the British version For Esmé—with Love and Squalor and Other Stories and was incredulous over Salinger’s suggestion. The title Nine Stories, he claimed, “would be about as big a handicap as could be provided for any book at birth, and we sincerely hope that you weren’t serious.”5 Salinger was indeed serious and was now sullen over Hamilton’s reaction.
In March, The Catcher in the Rye was released in paperback by Signet Books (a division of New American Library), selling for 50 cents. Salinger cringed over its presentation, but he had been forced to agree to it back in 1951 and was helpless to alter it now. The design, which Salinger had fought over two years earlier, depicted Holden Caulfield decked in his red hunting hat and carrying a suitcase, peering naively into a seedy nightclub. Standing next to Holden was an obvious “fallen woman” lighting a forbidden cigarette. The tawdry cover promised the most provocative of contents. “This unusual book may shock you,” it proclaimed, “will make you laugh, and may break your heart—but you will never forget it.” The back cover heralded Catcher as “a literary sensation” and contained a six-line biography of the author that offered no new information.
Happily, Salinger could ignore the paperback release of his novel. For him, the event was primarily a precursor to the publication of his short-story collection, which he had indeed decided to title Nine Stories. But the Signet release of Catcher reinforced Salinger’s belief that he needed to keep a close eye on Little, Brown and Company, which controlled the paperback rights to his books and was to blame for Signet’s offense. In Salinger’s mind, Little, Brown was in the business of selling ink on paper and cared nothing for the presentation of art. Salinger actually refused to refer to the publisher by name, derisively calling it “the House of Hits” instead. This time Salinger had his way: The cover of Nine Stories contained no illustration. Gone was any biography of the author, save a mention that he had written The Catcher in the Rye. Also absent was any photograph of Salinger. On that, he had been particularly adamant.
Nine Stories was published on April 6, 1953. Opening with “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and ending with “Teddy,” the collection included everything Salinger had published in The New Yorker between 1948 and 1953 in addition to “Down at the Dinghy” and “De Daumier–Smith’s Blue Period,” which had been published in other magazines. Salinger rightfully dedicated the anthology to his editor, Gus Lobrano, and his agent, Dorothy Olding, without whom few of the book’s contents would have reached the reading public. When Salinger finally held the collection of which he had dreamed for so many years, he was disappointed. He said that it seemed meager and toothless.6 But there was no question that Nine Stories would be popular. With the paperback release of The Catcher in the Rye reigniting interest in the author and, most conspicuously, allowing younger readers to experience the novel, public appetite for the collection was enormous. Yet it was precisely the success of Catcher that now handicapped Nine Stories.
The critical