J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [46]
This was a terrible position for Salinger, one that defied the feelings of solidarity he had come to embrace. It was also a situation that would last until D-Day. With the invasion merely weeks away, all troops involved were gathered into camouflaged marshaling areas on the south Devon coast, which had been emptied of civilians. Cordoned off from contact with the outside world, the troops were closely guarded by members of the Counter Intelligence Corps, who were now responsible for reporting any hint of treason.21
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From the first week of September 1940, Whit Burnett had pushed Salinger to write the novel that would ultimately become The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger’s response was immediate and reassuring: he would write the novel while in the army. Since Salinger’s induction, Burnett had become increasingly impatient for him to complete the work or at least to make substantial progress.
Salinger had given Burnett ample reason to be protective of the project, stating in a number of letters that Story Press and the novel were in a sense betrothed. Salinger had claimed to be writing the book for Burnett, repeatedly assuring him that it would belong as much to Story Press as to the author himself. In the meantime, Story Press had entered into a partnership with the wealthier Lippincott Press for the production of books at a rate that Story Press alone could not afford. The agreement was ideal for both companies: Story Press, with its connections to innovative and well-known authors, would supply the talent, and Lippincott would supply the capital. With Lippincott’s backing, Burnett now sought a writer who could produce a best seller to extend Story’s wealth and reputation. He believed that Salinger could produce that novel.
Burnett had reason to be nervous, though. Salinger was a short-story writer who was uncomfortable writing longer pieces. Accustomed to writing stories of about twelve pages, he had struggled with “The Children’s Echelon” partly because it ran to more than twenty-five pages. He even blamed that story’s failure on its length.22
Aware of this tendency, Burnett worried about Salinger’s commitment to producing a novel. And Salinger offered no firm assurances. Attempting to overcome his difficulties with length, he had chosen to construct the novel by writing it in segments—as a series of short stories that could be strung together into a book. By March 1944, he had completed six chapters written in this manner, none of which Burnett had seen. Armed with material that could be presented either way, Salinger now vacillated between completing the novel and releasing its chapters as separate short stories. With D-Day approaching and Salinger’s anxiety increasing, Burnett sought a way to prevent the release of the stories and preserve the book project.
On April 14, Burnett approached Salinger with a proposal to publish a collection of his short stories as an anthology. He suggested that the book be named after Salinger’s first story, “The Young Folks,” and be divided into three parts, with “the first third of the book [being] stories of young people on the eve of the war, the middle third in and around the army, and then one or two stories at the close of the war.”23 This would conveniently crowd out any contributions narrated by Holden Caulfield. Having offered this option, Burnett warned Salinger that if the collection failed, it could ruin the author’s career. But Burnett made his personal opinion plain: “If, on the other hand, it goes over,” he coyly reflected, “it will bridge the gap until your novel is completed.”24
Salinger’s response was cautious. He said that the idea of a short-story anthology frightened him. He claimed to be modest about the quality of his work and said he realized the implications if the project failed. He was relatively