Birthday Boy (short story)

Birthday Boy is an unpublished short story by J.D. Salinger.

Plot

The story concerns a woman named Miss Collins visiting her fiancé Ray at the hospital. Ray is being treated for an alcohol-induced illness, and when she enters, he pleads for a drink. When she denies his request he becomes enraged and gropes her.

History

Salinger references this story as late as 1951 in letters, but its date of completion was actually 1946.^[1] According to notes available on the manuscript found in the Harry Ransom Center, as well as the correspondence to his literary agent at the time, Dorothy Olding, he intended to sell the story to one of the "slicks" to acquire some financial security after he returned from his military service.

“Birthday Boy”, along with the stories “The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls” and “Paula”, was printed in a small run titled "Three Stories", reportedly in 1999, and posted to the Internet in late November, 2013.^[2]

References

↑ JD Salinger: A Bibliography. DM Fiene. Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature. 1963
↑ "Report: Unpublished J.D. Salinger stories leak online". CNN. 1 December 2013.

J. D. Salinger

Novel	The Catcher in the Rye

Short story collections	Nine Stories Franny and Zooey Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction Three Early Stories

Short stories	"Blue Melody" "Both Parties Concerned" "A Boy in France" "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period" "Down at the Dinghy" "Elaine" "For Esmé—with Love and Squalor" "A Girl I Knew" "Go See Eddie" "The Hang of It" "Hapworth 16, 1924" "The Heart of a Broken Story" "I'm Crazy" "The Inverted Forest" "Just Before the War with the Eskimos" "Last Day of the Last Furlough" "The Laughing Man" "The Long Debut of Lois Taggett" "The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls" "Once a Week Won't Kill You" "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" "Personal Notes of an Infantryman" "Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes" "Slight Rebellion off Madison" "Soft-Boiled Sergeant" "The Stranger" "Teddy" "This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise" "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" "The Varioni Brothers" "The Young Folks" "A Young Girl in 1941 with No Waist at All" "The Last and Best of the Peter Pans"

Related	Holden Caulfield Salinger (2013) (companion biography) Rebel in the Rye (TBA)

Book Category

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