The Laughing Man by J. D. Salinger. Short summary

5 seconds

A student used to tell stories to children about a noble bandit. But when his girlfriend dumped him, he killed his character. It came as a shock to all the children.

1 minute

The narrator recalls his childhood. When he was 9 years old, student John Gedsoodsky organized a team of 20 «Comanches,» for whom he was the Chief. Every day after school he took the boys to the park or the stadium. And after the walk, he would tell them about the Man who laughed.

It was a cycle of fables that the student made up as he went along. The main character in this epic was the son of rich missionaries, kidnapped as a child by Chinese bandits. They had mutilated the child, causing his mouth to turn into an ugly oval. He seemed to laugh incessantly.

This character grew up, mastering the language of animals and the skill of robbery. But he was noble, and the common Chinese loved him. Then the hero of the stories began to cross the borders of China and rob in the neighborhood of Paris. The detective Marcel Dufarge decided to kill the Man Who Laughed.

One day the Chief brought his girlfriend for a walk. Mary Hudson was quite good at baseball. But then the young people broke up. After that, the Chief told the children a story in which a noble bandit dies.