When I was about thirteen this title on my parents' bookshelves, with a lurid Pan cover — completely off the mark — For Esmé with Love and Squalor by J.D.Salinger, caught my eye. I read it the way you read when you need to be reading, for and against the future. At thirteen, Esmé's own age, you use what you have learned so far, in anticipation of more. Esmé is precociously articulate, aware of what fabric this is, this language she can't help performing on a wet afternoon in a café after choir practice. And yet, for all that, there's an honesty, a straightforwardness. She is waiting for her hair to dry to show that it is actually wavy hair. She is looking after her younger brother Charles who chokes over the punchline of his only riddle. What did one wall say to the other? Meetcha at the corner. She wants this American soldier/story writer to write a story for her. Not just for her, she amends, but for her.
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