Franny & Zooey and The Employees

It’s easy to neglect that the New Yorker often publishes works that approach the size of an 80 page paperback in a single magazine issue: JD Salinger’s Franny & Zooey, John McPhee’s Oranges and Coming into the Country, Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: All published in their entirety, sometimes serialized, before they were books.1 While they’re less frequent and shorter, we’re lucky the New Yorker still has the audacity to do this knowing full well they’re sending you another issue in two weeks. Franny and Zooey I’d never read any Salinger before I picked up Franny and Zooey. It’s curious title stared me down for years but it took an endorsement by Stephen Metcalf on Slate’s Culture Gabfest podcast for me to finally pick it up. In Franny, I wanted so desparately for her beau Lane to shut the hell up for just one fleeting moment and pay attention to her. She traveled by train to visit; she’s clearly in love with him, yet he treats her like an accessory. I vainly wanted so much for…