Short Story Wednesday: "Uncle Wiggily in the Country" From Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

 

Eloise and Mary Jane are two former college roommates, who are drinking the afternoon away in a suburban Connecticut town as a snowstorm builds outside. They are rehashing college days and the war that came soon after or at least men they knew that went to war. Eloise   remembers Walt, who died in an accident overseas and compares him with the man she married. Walt was the ideal man although one doubts he would have lasted with Eloise long.

Ramona, Eloise's small daughter comes into the room along with her pal, Jimmy, who turns out to be an invisible friend. The maid, Grace, a Black woman, asks if her husband can spend the night due to the inclement weather and Eloise turns her down cold. She is cruel to Ramona too and later cries at her bedside then asks Mary Jane if she was a nice girl in college. 

This story is a critique of the sort of women one found in the postwar suburbs. Eloise is given no good traits or moments in this story and Mary Jane fares only slightly better. Ramona's imaginary friend is much like Walt, the man her mother lost.

This is the only piece of work Salinger sold to Hollywood. It became a film called, MY FOOLISH HEART, which bore almost no resemblance to the story.

You do wonder when the war stopped playing such a big part in lives and in stories. I remember thinking the same thing about Vietnam. Such wars inhabit fiction as well as lives for a long time. 

(Uncle Wiggily is not the storybook character but instead the term Walt uses for Eloise's sprained ankle). 

George Kelley

Jerry House 

Tracy K 

Neer 

James Reasoner