Once a Week Won't Kill You
"Once a Week Won’t Kill You" | |
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Short story by J. D. Salinger | |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Publication | |
Published in | Story |
Publication date | November–December, 1944 |
“Once a Week Won’t Kill You” is a work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger published in the November–December 1944 issue of Story. The story is included in the 2014 Salinger collection Three Early Stories.[1][2]
Plot
The story concerns a young American soldier who is about to deploy overseas during World War II and his concern for his elderly aunt.[3]
Background
Salinger likely began writing "Once a Week Won't Kill You" while on board the military transport vessel SS George Washington. The ship would dock in Liverpool, England on January 29, 1944.[4] Biographer Kenneth Slawenski notes that the story "was laced with nostalgia for a world that Salinger was already beginning to miss and feared he might never see again."[5]
Editor Whit Burnett accepted the story for publication in October 1944 while Salinger, who spoke German and French, was on the front lines embedded as a counterintelligence officer in the 12th Infantry Regiment or the 4th Infantry Division. Story magazine published the work in November when Salinger’s unit was fighting in the Hürtgen Forest. The editors at Story magazine included a brief autobiographical sketch provided at their request by Salinger.[6]
Theme
Literary critic John Wenke describes the story as an exploration "of the ruptures war visits upon individuals and families."[7] Biographer Kenneth Slawenski discerns an ironical element associated with this particular work of short fiction:
While Salinger was enduring Hürtgen, "Once a Week Won’t Kill You" was published…The appearance of this piece, its plot trivial in comparison to his present circumstances, was tinged with irony. It must have been difficult for Salinger to recall the motivation behind the piece or even the persona who had penned it.[8]
Slawenski adds: "Of the original 3,080 regimental soldiers who went into Hürtgen, only 563 were left. For those soldiers especially, walking out of the forest alive was a victory in itself."[9]
Footnotes
- ^ Slawenski, 2010 p. 36
- ^ Wenke, 1991 p. 166: Selected Bibliography
- ^ Slawenski, 2010 p. 79: Plot sketch, "...about a soldier leaving for service and his concern for his aunt."
- ^ Slawenski, 2010 p. 79: Salinger began writing the story "perhaps even aboard ship."
- ^ Slawenski, 2010 p. 79
- ^ Slawenski, 2010 p. 23, p. 70, p, 126: Slawenski reports that Salinger was selected for counter-intelligence because he had learned to speak German and French while visiting Europe during 1937-1938
- ^ Wenke, 1991 p. 6
- ^ Slawenski, 2010 p. 115
- ^ Slawenski, 2010 p. 116
Sources
- Slawenski, Kenneth. 2010. J. D. Salinger: A Life. Random House, New York. ISBN 978-1-4000-6951-4
- Wenke, John. 1991. J. D. Salinger: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twaynes Studies in Short Fiction, Gordon Weaver, General Editor. Twayne Publishers, New York. ISBN 0-8057-8334-2
- v
- t
- e
- Nine Stories
- Franny and Zooey
- Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction
- Three Early 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"
- "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"
Unpublished |
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- Matt Salinger (son)
- Holden Caulfield
- Glass family
- Salinger v. Random House, Inc.
- My Foolish Heart (1949)
- Pari (1995)
- Salinger (2013) (companion biography)
- Manhattan's Babe (2014)
- Coming Through the Rye (2015 film)
- Rebel in the Rye (2017)
- My Salinger Year (2020)
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