The Hang of It

The story is a work of commercial tale about a soldier who just can't seem to get "the hang of it". It was reprinted in the 1942 and 1943 editions of the Kit Book for Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines by Consolidated Book Publishers, Inc.

Salinger wrote “The Hang of It” shortly before the United States entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan in 1941. [4]

Discerning the “popular appetite for positive short stories about the military,” Salinger abandoned any pretense at providing “psychological depth” and crafted an O. Henry-like tale with broad appeal. “The Hang of It” was published by Collier's on July 12, 1941, show-cased in an illustrated single-page format in small typeface. [5][6] Salinger thought highly of “The Hang of It” and was deeply gratified when Collier’s published the work, considering it a milestone in his early professional career.[7]

The story was selected for inclusion in the US Army’s 1942 and 1943 editions of Kit Book for Soldiers, Sailors and Marines, issued to servicemen as illustrated literary entertainment. [8] In 1943, Salinger’s publications in literary journals, including “The Hang of It, was brought to the attention of his superior officers. He was immediately assigned to the Air Force Service Command’s Public Relations Department in 1943 in Dayton, Ohio. While working in war-time public relations for the military, Salinger was screened and tapped to serve as a noncommissioned officer in the CIC. Proficient in German and French, he served as an interrogator of captured German soldiers and officers.[9]

Biographer Kenneth Slawenski speculates, based on correspondence between Ned Bradford, editor-in-chief at Little, Brown and Company publishers and Salinger, that the author considered authorizing a volume of World War II-related stories, including his 1941 “The Hang of It.”[10]

Slawenski dismisses this early effort, describing “The Hang of It” as “lacking in quality but easily sold to popular magazines.”[11] Calling the story “a brief, sentimental failure”[12] John Wenke reports that “The Hang of It” and “Personal Notes of an Infantryman” qualify only as “patriotic bromides in prose that are resolved in cute-to-sickening surprise endings.”[13] Remarking upon the “glib” handling of the narrative and its “cloying” ending, literary critic John Wenke adds this:

These portraits offer idealized accounts of unreflecting people parading through a comic-book military. What is remarkable is that “The Hang of It” [is] completely unlike Salinger’s more expansive tales of men and boys at war.”[14]

Indeed, the story contrasts sharply with Salinger’s compassionate treatment of WWII experiences of American G.I.s, in particular his “Soft-Boiled Sergeant” (1944), originally titled “Death of a Dogface.”[15]

• Shields, David and Salerno, Shane. 2013. Salinger. Simon & Schuster, New York. ISBN 978-1-4767-4483-4
• Slawenski, Kenneth. 2010. J. D. Salinger: A Life. Random House, New York. ISBN 978-1-4000-6951-4
• Wenke, John. 1991. J. D. Salinger: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twaynes Studies in Short Fiction, Gordon Weaver, General Editor. Twayne Publishers, New York. ISBN 0-8057-8334-2