"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J.D. Salinger

If you follow me on Twitter, you know one of my new life goals is to own the most rockin' short story collection in all the land.  Because I'm trying to pull stories from various genres and time periods, I am relying a great deal on my library to support my short story habit, but I'm going to purchase a few books along the way to get my collection on point: Nine Stories seemed a great place to start.

"Bananafish" is the first story in Salinger's Nine Stories, a perfect little book. There are few things in life I love more than a book small enough to fit in my purse.

The story opens with a woman name Muriel: "She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing."  If I had to cast her, I'd choose Scarlett Johansson at her most inaccessible.  Halfway through the story, the omniscient narrator shifts his focus to Seymour Glass, Muriel's husband.  We have learned from Muriel's phone conversation with her mother that Seymour is a ticking time bomb.  The scene where he takes little Sybil, a fellow tourist at their hotel, into the water for a swim, is ripe with portent.  I have already lost one Sybil this year via Downton Abbey and was not prepared to lose another.

The ending is unexpected and swift, so much so that you will find yourself reading it twice to be sure you got it right.

"Bananafish" was published in The New Yorker on January 31, 1948, three years before The Catcher and the Rye rose to fame.  The story is notable for its insight into Salinger's mind at work before his masterpiece, in its treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder before we called it that, and for its unique point of view and ability to build suspense without every delving inside of its characters' minds.