Two Lonely Men
From Bananafish
| Two Lonely Men | |
|---|---|
| Status | Unpublished |
| Original publication source | |
| Original publication date | 1944 |
| Salinger.org rating | |
| Previous | Next |
| The Magic Foxhole | A Young Man in a Stuffed Shirt |
Two Lonely Men was called "pretty good" by Salinger in a September 1944 letter to Whit Burnett.
The draft of this story is currently housed at the Firestone Library of Princeton University. Access is tightly controlled, and Salinger has reportedly ordered that the stories not be published until at least 50 years after his death.
Account
27 pp. of double-spaced typescript with the by-line J.D. Salinger
An unnamed narrator, who worked at Ground School as a Morse Code Instructor at a United States Army base in the South, tells the story of a developing friendship between Master Sergeant Charles Maydee and Captain Huggins. Their friendship grows with nightly games of gin rummy until Captain Huggins sets his wife up in a nearby hotel and moves in with her. Maydee and Huggins do not see much of each other then until Huggins' wife reveals to her husband that she has been having an affair three times a week with Bernie Farr. Maydee promises to intercede with Huggins' wife, but Maydee apparently begins having an affair with her (a situation similar to that of Arthur, Lee, and Joanie in Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes). As the story ends, Maydee tells the narrator that he has asked for a transfer because he doesn't like Huggins.
Sources
- The Unpublished Stories of JD SalingerDead Caulfields. Retrieved on September 12, 2006.
