Summary

“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J. D. Salinger starts with Muriel Glass, who is in her hotel room in Florida waiting for a long-distance phone call to come through. In the meantime, the woman reads a magazine, grooms herself, takes some stains out of a skirt and paints her nails. When the phone finally rings, she does not hurry to answer. On the other end of the line is her mother. The two have a rather long conversation about the road to Florida, people in the hotel and Muriel’s husband, Seymour. The woman’s parents are worried about their daughter’s safety because her husband has been recently released from a psychiatric center, after serving in World War II. Muriel’s mother is concerned the man might lose control, but Muriel dismisses her mother’s worries, seeing her husband’s crises as benign (harmless).

The story shifts to the beach...