Lunchtime read: For Esme with Love and Squalor...

The last couple of stories in this collection by Salinger are too long to be read at one lunch break sitting so will be split into two halves. The first half of this story has an upbeat pace, which is strange bearing in mind the grief of the main character, and there is a humour there but also a feeling that this will end in tears.

De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period
A 19 year old that has been living in Paris returns to New York with his step father following his mother’s death and decides to apply for a teaching post acting as a teacher for a remote teaching course specialising in art

Making up a load of lies about his French history, being related to De Daumier and a best friend of Picasso, he manages to get the job and heads off for his adventure working for a Japanese couple

He spends his first night in their son’s room and then wastes his first morning translating letters from English into French and then after lunch gets to see his first three pupils work that ranges from the inept to the disturbing

Second half tomorrow…