"The Long Debut of Lois Taggett" is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the September-October 1942 issue of Story.
[6] With the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, The New Yorker quickly pulled “Slight Rebellion” from the upcoming issue: as the United States prepared to enter World War II, the American public “was no longer anxious to read the frivolous whining of dissatisfied upper-crust youths.”[7] “Slight Rebellion” would not appear in The New Yorker until after war in December 1946.
[8] Salinger, disappointed by this setback, compensated by instructing his agent Dorothy Olding to submit “Lois Taggett” to Story magazine immediately.
That was the first season when Intelligent was the thing to be.”[11] Lois is the victim of “the inexplicably deranged” Bill Tedderson, a social-climber who marries her for her good looks, sophistication and family fortune.
[13] As an exploration of the “incursions of psychosis,”[14] Salinger fails to provide a motive for Ted’s “inexplicable violence” and, as such, “the tale suffers from serious structural problems” in its narrative.