A Perfect Day for Bananafish

"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is a short story by J. D. Salinger, originally published in the January 31, 1948 issue of The New Yorker. It was anthologized in 1949's 55 Short Stories from the New Yorker, as well as in Salinger's 1953 collection, Nine Stories. The story is an enigmatic examination of a young married couple, Muriel and Seymour Glass, while on vacation in Florida. It is the first of his stories to feature a member of the fictional Glass family.

When twenty-eight-year-old Salinger submitted the manuscript to The New Yorker in January 1947, titled "The Bananafish", its arresting dialogue and precise style were read with interest by fiction editor William Maxwell and his staff, though the point of the story, in this original version, was deemed incomprehensible.

At Maxwell's urging, Salinger embarked upon a major reworking of the piece, adding the opening section with Muriel's character, and crafting the material to provide insights into Seymour's tragic demise. Salinger, in frequent consultation with editor Gus Lobrano, revised the story numerous times throughout 1947, renaming it "A Fine Day for Bananafish".The New Yorker published the final version as "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" one year after Salinger had first submitted the manuscript.

The effort was met with immediate acclaim, and according to Salinger biographer Paul Alexander, it was "the story that would permanently change his standing in the literary community." Salinger's decision to collaborate with Maxwell and The New Yorker staff in developing the story marked a major advance in his career and led to his entry into that echelon of elite writers at the journal.

The story opens in an upscale seaside hotel room in Florida. A young woman, Muriel Glass, is preening herself while waiting for the hotel switchboard operator to put a long-distance phone call through to her mother. Self-absorbed and complacent, she is "a girl who for the ringing of a phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually since she reached puberty."

Speaking with her mother, the central topic is Muriel's young husband, Seymour, a World War II combat veteran recently discharged from an Army hospital, where he was presumably evaluated for psychiatric disorders. He has gone down to the beach for the afternoon. The mother-daughter exchange includes a good deal of banter about clothing and fashion, as well as disparaging remarks about the quality of the hotel guests. The mother is disgusted and incensed, as well as possibly frightened for her daughter's safety, by reports about her son-in-law's increasingly bizarre and anti-social behavior – acting "funny" – and she persistently warns Muriel that Seymour "may completely lose control of himself". Muriel dismisses her remarks as hyperbole, regarding her husband's idiosyncrasies as benign and manageable. Neither of the women express concern that Seymour's irrational behavior may indicate that he is suffering emotionally.

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