Story Status: Published

Zooey is a long story published in The New Yorker in 1957.

Trivia

The story was apparently presented in an early form in 1956 as Ivanoff, the Terrible, but Salinger had to rework it extensively in collaboration with William Shawn.

This is the book everyone knows. It “stars” Holden Caulfield, whose family appeared in some of the earlier short stories below. In fact, Holden and some of the “incidents” from Catcher appear in them, too! Check out the character appearances pages.

Oddly, this book never made it to number one in the New York Times bestseller list. However, it does have the distinction of receiving, according to the American Library Association, “the most attempts at being banned, with most critics objecting to profane language in the book.” (Los Angeles Times, Sept. 28, 1992)

A sixteen year old boy named Holden Caulfield (the son of wealthy parents) runs away from school to his home in New York. Wandering the city alone, he is disillusioned by the superficiality of it and its citizens. However, it is through witnessing his young sister Phoebe going round and round on a merry-go-round after a trip to the zoo that he receives any sort of answer or joy, not from the advices of the school teachers, girlfriend and other acquaintances he meets along the way.