"The Heart of a Broken Story" is a short story by J. D. Salinger published in the September 1941 issue of Esquire.Wenke, 1991 p. 166: Selected BibliographyShields and Salerno, 2013 pp. 577-579: Fiction in Chronological Order of Publication.
Plot
The third-person narrator begins the story, involving a romantic encounter between its youthful protagonists, Justin Horgenschlag and Shirley Lester. When Justin sees Shirley on a public bus, he instantly becomes infatuated with her, and begins his efforts to ask her for a date.
The omniscient narrator breaks into the narrative at this point and speaks directly to the reader: he admits that he is struggling to proceed with the story. He admits that the premise of the story is trite. The narrator further makes pejorative remarks about the literary journal in which the narrative appears, disparaging its typical literary content. After offering a number of scenarios in an effort to construct a meaningful love story, he abandons the project. The narrator relegates the would-be couple to their former anonymity, and they disembark the bus to pursue their separate lives.Slawenski, 2010 p. 40-41: Plot summaryWenke, 1991 pp. 12-15: Plot summary
Critical Assessment
"The Heart of a Broken Story" marks a turning point in Salinger's approach to writing for commercial literary markets in the 1940s. Biographer Kenneth Slawnski explains:
Literary critic John Wenke observes that the story "invalidates its own premises. Well before meta-fiction became fashionable, Salinger unmakes - that is, he deconstructs - the form of the sentimental love story..."Wenke, 1991 p. 6, p. 12: "...the metafictional playfulness of 'The Heart of a Broken Story.'"
Wenke adds that "The Heart of a Broken Story" is a "highly sophisticated, carefully refined piece...remarkable for its surface play of comic brilliance."Wenke, 1991 p, 5, p. 12: Composite quote.
Theme
Regarded as one of Salinger's "best early stories" by critic John Wenke, the story serves as a burlesque of the formulaic "boy-meets-girl" scenarios commonly found in issues of Collier's during the 1940s—for which Salinger had often submitted his work.Wenke, 1991 p. 5 Indeed, the narrative involves a young writer's struggle to reconcile the commercial demands for sentimental love stories with a more sophisticated rendering of human relationships - and fails at the endeavor. The story reveals "Salinger's concern with the place of art in a materialistic society, on the one hand, and the limits of conventional fictional form, on the other."Wenke, 1991 p. 9: "...narrator's account of his failure to concoct a sentimental Collier's love story."
Salinger repeatedly refers to Collier's as a provender of romantic pabulum. The narrator, commenting on the antics of his own literary creation, named Justin Horgenschlag, remarks sarcastically: "You can't expect Collier's readers to swallow that kind of bilge."Wenke, 1991 p. 13
Significantly, "The Heart of a Broken Story" was accepted for publication in Esquire—and not Collier's.Wenke, 1991 p. 5, p. 14: "Its placement in Esquire accentuates Salinger's capacity to discriminate among diverse [literary] markets." John Wenke comments on the early appearance of "self-reflexivity" in the story:
Footnotes
Sources Shields, David and Salerno, Shane. 2013. Salinger. Simon & Schuster, New York. Slawenski, Kenneth. 2010. J. D. Salinger: A Life. Random House, New York. 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.