J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [16]
“The Young Folks” is mainly a dialogue between two young people who meet at a party, an unpopular girl named Edna Phillips and William Jameson Junior, a nail-biting scotch drinker reminiscent of Salinger himself. Much of their conversation is strained as Edna desperately attempts to retain Jameson’s attention; he is plainly distracted by a vacuous blonde holding court in the next room.
Like many of his future characters, the young misfits chain-smoke for entertainment, allowing Salinger to produce the story’s central prop: a rhinestone-encrusted cigarette case from which Edna smokes the last of her cigarettes. When Jameson finally extracts himself from Edna’s company, she wends her way upstairs and into an empty set of rooms off limits to her and the other young guests. Twenty minutes pass before Edna returns. Across the room sits an attractive blonde enjoying the company of a handful of young men. One of them clutches a scotch in one hand and bites the nails of the other. Edna then opens her small black case studded with rhinestones and containing about a dozen cigarettes. Removing one, she calls to the other partygoers to change the music. Edna Phillips wants to dance.
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As the Great Depression persisted, people loved to read about the fortunate lives of the rich. But rather than depicting affluent young lives as enviable, “The Young Folks” shone a stark spotlight on the un-glamorous truths of upper-class society. It exposed the emptiness and unromantic realities of their pampered existence: the characters of Salinger’s first story are dull and brittle, with their trivial social skills having long ago eclipsed any hint of introspection or empathy.
When Salinger’s euphoria over “The Young Folks” began to fade, he discovered that he was unable to sell another story. For eight months, he submitted one attempt after another to various magazines, receiving only rejection slips in reply. Outwardly, he feigned stoicism, claiming to recognize the value of the process and reporting to Whit Burnett that he was finally oriented to his new career. Inwardly, he was growing despondent and reconsidering becoming an actor or playwright.
In March 1940, Salinger submitted another attempt to Burnett called “The Survivors,” which he may have begun the previous year. The work confirmed Salinger’s talent, but Burnett found its ending ambiguous and returned it to be revised. The following month, Salinger presented the editor with another story, a tense dialogue piece entitled “Go See Eddie” about a beautiful but self-centered femme fatale who devastates the lives of those around her to save herself from boredom. Burnett rejected this attempt too, but he did so gently, explaining that though he personally liked the piece, the magazine was unable to “fit it in,” a common excuse at Story Press.11 On April 16, he sent a letter to Salinger suggesting that the story be submitted to Esquire instead and enclosed a personal referral to be forwarded to Esquire editor Arnold Gingrich. Salinger masked his disappointment with an upbeat response on the next day, expressing gratitude to Burnett for his personal approval of the story. “That is satisfaction enough almost,” he declared ambiguously; but as he wrote those words, “Go See Eddie” was already on its way to Esquire with Burnett’s endorsement.12 A few weeks later, Salinger’s optimism began to wane. Esquire had turned down “Go See Eddie,” and it seems apparent that other attempts had suffered a similar fate.
That May, however, Harold Ober Associates, one of the most prestigious literary agencies on Madison Avenue, agreed to represent Salinger. The agency designated Dorothy Olding, an agent who had joined Ober two years before, to market Salinger’s work. Just turned thirty, Olding had already