Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes

"Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes" is a short story written by J. D. Salinger for The New Yorker, collected in his Nine Stories. It is the story of an old man who speaks to his friend on the phone about his wife, while the old man appears to be with her.

Plot summary

Lee and a girl are in his apartment together. The phone rings and he reaches across her to answer it. It is Arthur, worried about his wife, Joanie, who disappeared from a party. Lee tells him to relax and assures him that she will turn up soon. Arthur is worried about his job too. He is a lawyer and has just lost a case. After he rings off Lee turns to the girl and she tells him he was wonderful and that she feels like a dog. (She is apparently the missing wife.) The phone rings again. It is Arthur to say that his wife has returned. Lee is speechless with amazement and ends this conversation very quickly.

References

Salinger, J. D. (1953). Nine Stories. New York: Little, Brown.

J. D. Salinger

Novel	The Catcher in the Rye

Short story collections	Nine Stories Franny and Zooey Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction Three Early Stories

Short 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" "The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls" "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" "The Last and Best of the Peter Pans"

Related	Holden Caulfield Salinger (2013) (companion biography) Rebel in the Rye (TBA)

Book Category

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