If you played a drinking game where everyone had to take a swig every time the word “drink” was mentioned in a J.D. Salinger novel or story, you’d be loaded by the end of certain stories.
Like many people, I’ve been thinking about J.D. Salinger and what I love about his work, which made me start thinking about drinking. In Salinger’s short stories & novels, everyone drinks–men, women, teens–and mostly, in keeping with the times, they drink cocktails, Mad Men-style.
You could do an entire analysis of drinking as social lubricant and facilitator of secret-spilling in just one of his stories, “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut,” from the collection, Nine Stories. For those of you who haven’t yet read it, read it. The gist of the story is this: Mary Jane and Eloise, former college roommates, have a cocktail-soaked lunch sans food (”the whole damn lunch was burned”) at Eloise’s house. They start out with small talk and gossip, but over the course of a few hours, they peel away the layers of conversation until hard-as-nails Eloise uncovers a secret from her past and sobs to Mary Jane. Turns out she isn’t so icy, after all, and the drinking uncovers her vulnerability.
Throughout the entire story, drinking is a heavy subtext, so much so that the glass of booze becomes almost another character in the story:
“Twenty minutes later they were finishing their first highball in the living room and were talking in the manner peculiar, probably limited, to former college roommates.”
“‘Marvellous,’ she said, coming back into drinking position.”
“‘Gimme your glass,’ Eloise said, swinging her stockinged feet to the floor and standing up.”
“‘This is positively the last one for me!’ Mary Jane called after her.”
“Like hell it is.”
“With little or no wherewithal for being left alone in a room, Mary Jane stood up and walked over to the window.”
“It’s getting so icy out…Didn’t you put any soda in them?”
“Eloise came forward with the drinks. She placed Mary Jane’s insecurely into its coaster but kept her own in hand.”
“‘This is my last. And I mean it,’ Mary Jane said, picking up her drink.”
“Oh, God! Look what I did. I’m terribly sorry, El.” (Mary Jane spills her drink)
“‘Oh, what a pretty dress!’ She set down her drink.”
“‘I don’t get it,’ Mary Jane said to Eloise, who was finishing her drink.”
“Call up and say you were killed. Let go of that damn glass.”
“‘I mean, you didn’t really know Walt,’ said Eloise at a quarter of five, lying on her back on the floor, a drink balanced upright on her small-breasted chest. ‘He was the only boy I ever knew that could make me laugh. I mean really laugh.’”
“Mary Jane giggled. She was lying on her stomach on the couch…her drink was on the floor, within reach.” 
“Eloise raised her head, liftend her drink from her chest, and drank from it.”
“Eloise paused to drink from her glass and to think.”
“Eloise finished her drink and replaced the empty glass upright on her chest.”
“Eloise began to cry. She put her hand around the empty glass on her chest to steady it.”
“Let’s have another drink.”
“You go get the drinks, huh. And bring the bottle…”
“At the window seat, she poured what was left in the bottle of Scotch into her glass. It made about a finger. She drank if off, shivered, and sat down.”
On a side note, women today might more likely be sharing a bottle of wine, but no one in Salinger’s stories drank wine (Head on over to “Dear Dara” to read Dara’s blog post about the absence of wine in Salinger’s novels & short stories). Can you think of a time in your life when a secret was spilled or something was confided because someone had a few too many?
