For Esmé — with Love and Squalor by J. D. Salinger. Short summary

5 seconds

In England, an American officer met 13-year-old Esma. She asked him to write a story for her. After the war, she sent him her father’s watch. And the wounded storyteller went on the mend.

1 minute

A story in the form of a letter that the author writes to his bride who invited him to a wedding in England. The letter consists of two parts.

In 1944 the narrator was taking a drill in Devonshire. He walked into a church and saw a children’s choir rehearsing. One 13-year-old girl was singing her best.

The officer went to the cafe. Soon the governess there brought that very girl and her 5-year-old brother. The girl approached the lonely American.

She said that her name was Esma, that her father had died at the front, and her mother had died, and that she and her brother were being raised by an aunt. Esma dreamed of becoming a singer. But reported that she loves to read very much. When she learned that the American officer was a writer, she asked him to write a story for her. Before parting, the storyteller gave the girl his field address.

Immediately after the war, in Bavaria, the narrator could not go from his wounds. He is plagued by depression and insomnia. Among his correspondence, he finds a parcel. In it is a letter from Esma and her father’s watch.

The girl writes that it is a talisman. Taking the watch in his hands, the narrator feels that the depression has receded.