J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [15]
By semester’s end, Whit Burnett had become Salinger’s mentor, a near–father figure whom Jerry looked to for advice and approval. Salinger fell over his own feet in the effort to please him. His contemporary letters portray him as very much the wide-eyed kid and flow with admissions of ignorance and an abundance of saccharine. Such was his gratitude for Burnett’s attentions that on one occasion he actually assured the editor that he would do anything for him—short of committing murder.6
By late 1939, Salinger had finished a short story entitled “The Young Folks,” and he presented it to Burnett for review. Burnett liked it so much that he suggested Salinger submit it to Collier’s, a popular magazine featuring short stories sandwiched between noisy advertisements. Collier’s, The Saturday Evening Post, Harper’s, and a variety of women’s magazines were commonly known as “the slicks,” and were the established venue for short stories in the 1930s and 1940s.*
On the morning of November 21, Salinger, with manuscript in hand, traveled downtown to the offices of Collier’s and delivered his story personally. The magazine rejected it, as Salinger had suspected it would.7 This, however, was Jerry’s first experience of the rough-and-tumble of professional writing, and he stoically recognized its value.
His student’s lesson with the slicks now complete, Burnett asked for “The Young Folks” back and took it to Story Press. There it sat for weeks while he debated with himself whether to publish it in Story magazine. For Salinger, to whom Burnett had made no promises, the wait must have seemed like an eternity.
Whit Burnett did not coddle Salinger. He did not discover a literary genius sitting in the back row of his Monday class and deliver him to instant fame. Rather, he forced Jerry to work for his own success. As a mentor, Burnett may well have had every intention to publish his pupil, but as a teacher, he first demanded that his student exhaust other options. Only when “The Young Folks” had been rejected by a magazine other than his did Burnett come to the rescue and retrieve the story.
Shortly after his twenty-first birthday, in January 1940, Salinger received word from Story that “The Young Folks” had been accepted and would be published in a forthcoming edition. He wrote to Whit Burnett that he was “thrilled,” and also somewhat relieved. “Thank God,” he imagined his old classmates responding, “he certainly talked about it enough!”8 Elevated by the achievement and anxious to strike out on his own as a professional writer, Salinger decided not to reenroll at Columbia. His schooldays were over.
Now convinced that he had embarked on a bright path of literary triumphs, Salinger treated “The Young Folks” like a newborn child. On February 5, Story magazine informed him that it would send out cards announcing the story’s publication and the author’s emergence onto the literary stage. Salinger gladly provided names of recipients for the cards and in return received an advance copy of the issue.
Salinger said that each day spent waiting for the issue’s publication felt like Christmas Eve. Restlessly, he planned on going away to celebrate, but his parents went instead, leaving Jerry home alone to spend his days playing records, drinking beer, moving his typewriter from room to room, and reading aloud to the empty apartment.9 Distracted by his excitement, it was not until February 24, almost six weeks after “The Young Folks” had been accepted, that Salinger remembered to properly thank the magazine for the opportunity. Burnett’s reaction to Jerry’s enthusiasm was almost paternal. He told Salinger that he hoped the story’s presentation would meet well with his “discriminating eye” and invited him to the annual Writers Club dinner in May. Salinger happily accepted.10
The spring edition of Story magazine finally introduced the world to the writings of J. D. Salinger. Within its red-and-white cover rested his five-page story, for which the author