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Plot summary

First part: "Franny"

Lane Coutell is waiting on the platform at a train station. He is waiting for Franny Glass, who is coming in with other college women, for a football weekend at Lane's college. As he stands there, he reads a letter from Franny. In the letter, she discusses her dislike for most poets and keeps telling Lane that she loves him. Lane is interrupted by an acquaintance of his. Then, the train arrives. Franny and Lane have a somewhat awkward reunion. Lane asks about a book that Franny is holding, but she brushes off his question. She tells him about the girls that she rode in with who fit the stereotypes of different colleges. Franny tells Lane that she has missed him and realizes that she is lying.

Lane and Franny go for lunch at Sickler's, a restaurant where students on the "intellectual fringe" dine. They are drinking martinis. Lane is talking about a paper he has written about the French author Gustave Flaubert. He got an "A" on the paper and wants Franny to read it. Franny's patience is wearing out. She tells Lane that he is talking like a "section man." These men, she explains, are the graduate students that help teach her classes. They over-intellectualize literature and ruin it. Franny then apologizes for her rant and says that she has been feeling strange. She tells Lane that she wishes she had not gone back to school that year, or at least that she had given up the English department. She feels that everyone in it destroys literature rather than creating it.

Lane begins to take offense. He says that she has two of the "best men" in her department, both of whom are poets. Franny counters that they are not "real poets." When Lane asks what a "real poet" is, Franny says that to be a real poet, one must leave something beautiful. She says that she just wants to have someone there that she can respect. At this point, she begins to feel strange and excuses herself to the bathroom. Lane is annoyed when she leaves but tries to look "attractively bored."

In the bathroom, Franny begins to perspire. She cries for a while, until she looks at her little green book again. When she comes out, she tells Lane that she is much better but not hungry. When he tells her the plan for the weekend, she does not remember any of his friends. This upsets Lane, especially because Franny tells him that she cannot remember his friends because they all look, talk, and act the same. It is not only Lane's friends, though, Franny says. Women all act the same, too, even when they try to be different. Lane begins to get worried about her. Franny tells him that she has quit the play she was going to be in. She says she hated the phoniness of it and the horrible lines she had to say. She doesn't want to be around people with big egos anymore. Lane tells her that a psychoanalyst would say she was afraid of competition. Franny begins perspiring again, and her teeth start chattering. As she searches in her purse for a napkin to wipe her forehead, she takes out her green book again.

Lane asks again about the book. Finally, she tells him that it is called "The Way of the Pilgrim." It is a religious text about a poor man in Russia who learns to speak the "Jesus prayer." This prayer involves repeating the same prayer--"Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me"--over and over, until it becomes a part of your heartbeat. After that, you are continually praying even without trying to. Franny likes the idea because this practice is supposed to purify your mind and heart. She says that there are similar prayers in other religions. By now, she is very emotional. Lane is somewhat bored and says that there is no science behind this idea. Franny excuses herself and faints on the way to the bathroom. When she comes to, Lane is there and worried. He tells her to rest for the afternoon. He also says that perhaps he can come up and visit her in her room, and he implies that they have not been sexual in a long time. He goes to get her some water, and Franny begins to pray soundlessly.

Second part: "Zooey"

This story begins with an introduction by the fictional author, Buddy Glass. Buddy is the oldest living brother of Franny Glass and Zooey Glass. He is an author and teacher. He tells the reader that this story is a "prose home movie"--a home movie in writing. He says that Zooey believes the story to be a mystical tale while he, Buddy, thinks it is a love story. After this brief introduction, Buddy refers to himself in the third person.

It is mid-morning one Monday in November of 1955. Zooey is sitting in the bathtub, in the New York City apartment that he grew up in, reading a four-year-old letter from Buddy. In it, Buddy complains that their mother, Bessie, nags him to get rid of the phone that he keeps in a New York apartment and get a phone in his remote home at the college. Then, Buddy passes on some nagging from Bessie to Zooey, telling Zooey he should get a Ph.D. before pursuing acting seriously. Buddy then apologizes for, perhaps, along with their oldest brother Seymour, having taught Zooey and Franny too much about Buddhism and religion as young children. Buddy writes that he is afraid that Zooey knows too much about beauty to be an actor. No productions, he writes, are ever beautiful, and he is afraid that this lack of beauty will hurt Zooey. Buddy then reveals that he is writing the letter on the three-year anniversary of Seymour's suicide. All the Glass children highly regard their oldest brother, seeing him as a genius and a poet.

The letter continues with Buddy telling a story about having arrived for Seymour's funeral with the "wrong expression" on his face. A woman on the plane had been telling a grotesque story, and Buddy could not help but find the situation amusing. Seymour's widow was not pleased. Buddy returns to his original point: He wants to explain to Zooey why he and Seymour gave Franny and him such a rigorous education in spiritualism. Buddy writes that he and Seymour had decided that the best thing in life to pursue was not knowledge, but "no-knowledge." Instead of setting Franny and Zooey on a path of trying to learn everything, they hoped to explain, through their religious lessons, that knowledge was not the most important thing. Buddy ends by telling Zooey to do whatever he wants--act if he must--but give it his all.

When Zooey Glass finishes re-reading Buddy's letter, he thinks about it for a while and then picks up a script, probably to memorize lines. The script reads like a melodramatic soap opera. His mother, Bessie, knocks on the bathroom door and asks if she can come in. Zooey pulls the shower curtain around himself and she enters, telling him that he should not stay in the bath so long. Zooey is immediately annoyed. Bessie sits down in her house kimono and goes through the medicine cabinet. She stalls, then asks whether Zooey has talked to his sister (Franny) yet. Zooey says no, but that he talked to her for two hours the night before. Bessie then starts complaining about Buddy having no phone. Zooey becomes very annoyed with her. Bessie comments that the title of Zooey's play is "unusual," and she remarks that Zooey never thinks anything is beautiful or unusual. Zooey responds by insulting Bessie's taste. Bessie then tells Zooey that she is worried about Franny and about their father, Les, who won't acknowledge that there is anything wrong with Franny even though Franny can hardly stop crying. She says that Les expects to hear all of the children on "It's a Wise Child," the radio show that they were all on as children and adolescents.

Zooey and Bessie continue to argue about Zooey talking to Franny. Then they are quiet, and the narrator describes Bessie's eyes: They tell the story of her having lost her favorite, kindest son (Seymour) and her only cheerful son (Walter). But, her children hate to look at her eyes because even with all of their tragic beauty, Bessie usually only talks about practical matters. Finally, Bessie leaves the bathroom. Zooey gets out of the bath and shaves. As he does so, Bessie comes back to ask whether she should summon their brother Waker, who has become a priest, to talk to Franny. Answering herself, Bessie decides that Waker is too emotional. Bessie then tells Zooey that Lane Coutell is worried about Franny. Zooey calls Lane a fake. Lane thinks Franny's problem has to do with her book. Zooey tells Bessie that Franny got that book from Seymour's room. Zooey says he is sick of talking and thinking about Seymour and Buddy. Bessie mentions getting Franny a psychoanalyst. Zooey thinks that is a terrible idea; he thinks that they are all shallow. Zooey explains the "Jesus prayer" to Bessie and then makes fun of her for a while. Bessie admires her son's back, and Zooey then becomes uncomfortable. Finally, after telling him that all of her children were more fun and happy when they were young, Bessie leaves him alone again.

Franny lies asleep on the couch in the living room of the Glass apartment. This room is cluttered with furniture and pictures of the children's days on "It's a Wise Child." The living room window looks out onto a school for girls. Zooey enters the room with a cigar and wakes up Franny. She has had terrible dreams about diving for a can of coffee at the bottom of the pool while people stood around and watched. When she came up for air, girls from her dorm tried to hit her on the head with an oar. Franny then tells Zooey about her religion professor, who she thinks hates her because she does not respond favorably when he is being phony and charming. Zooey spots sheet music with a picture of their parents on the cover. He asks Franny how their parents could have produced the children that they did. Franny asks whether he received his script. Zooey says yes and that the writer wanted him to go out for drinks late the night before. Zooey rants about out-of-towners who try too hard to find quaint restaurants and bars.

They talk about acting and scripts. Zooey has an offer to go work on a film in France, but he does not want to leave New York. As he is saying this, Franny is remembering the Saturday before--ruining Lane Coutell's day. Zooey says that the two of them must remember not to rail at other people and things, but at themselves. Seymour and Buddy made them into freaks, Zooey says. Zooey goes on to say that he is frustrated with the ego and the phoniness of television. Franny says that he sounds like she does. She tried to ignore her frustration at first but recently could not do it anymore. She says that she wants wisdom from college and she cannot find it. Zooey asks if that is what she wants from the Jesus prayer--because if she is hoping to gain things from that, she is just as bad as someone who wants physical things like clothing or food. Franny tells him that she is worried about her motives for doing the prayer but does not know what else to do. She says she wants to talk to Seymour.

Looking outside, Zooey sees a beautiful scene of a young girl and a dog. He becomes annoyed that people get so sidetracked from the beauty of life. Zooey tells Franny that their brother Walter's religious philosophy was that God did bad things to people who called the world ugly. Zooey asks Franny if he can talk to her for a while. Franny agrees. Zooey tells her that he once wanted to try the Jesus prayer, too, but did not. He says that it is too hard on the family to have her do this and break down at home. In addition, he has a problem with the way that she seems to loathe and despise the professors that she talks about. Zooey thinks that it should not be personal. Further, Zooey does not think that Franny understands Jesus. He thinks that she wants to make him more lovable than he is. Zooey also has a problem with Franny putting down egos. Some are good, like those that make creativity possible. Zooey then returns to Franny not understanding Jesus. Zooey calls him the most intelligent man in the Bible. After all, he understood that God and man are all the same. Zooey finishes. Franny has been sobbing for most of the speech. Zooey apologizes briefly and leaves the room.

When Zooey leaves the living room, he runs into Bessie, who wonders why her son is perspiring. He ignores her and enters Seymour and Buddy's old room. There, he reads several quotations from various books of world literature, which are printed neatly all over the door. Zooey sits down at Seymour's desk and looks at all the books in the room. Then, he reads from Seymour's make-shift diary, a stack of shirt-cardboards covered with writing. He puts the cardboards down and sits for almost half an hour. Then, he picks up Buddy's private phone and dials the main apartment number. He places his handkerchief over the mouthpiece and waits.

Franny and Bessie are in the living room. The phone rings. Bessie gets it and comes to tell Franny that it is Buddy on the phone for her. Franny picks up the phone in her parent's room. "Buddy" (really Zooey) asks how she is. Franny talks for a while about Zooey. She says that he speaks in circles and rants and frustrates her. Then, Franny realizes that it is Zooey on the phone. She tells him that she cannot take any more. Zooey tells her that he called to say that she should not stop the prayer if she does not want to. But he has a few more things to say: When Franny decided to say the prayer, she did not go looking for a master to teach her to pray, she came home. Therefore, to some degree, she wants help from the family. And she does not understand that Bessie, with her chicken soup, is offering Franny holy nourishment. Zooey tells her that he and Buddy saw her in a play the summer before and that she was very good. He tells her to use her crazy education to become a great actress. He believes that she, like him, wants to be remembered for something, to have an honorable skull like Yorick's (a reference to Shakespeare's Hamlet). And, he says, if Franny was meant to act, then she should act.

Zooey continues to tell her that she should not care about the stupidity of the audiences. After all, it is none of her business. After a pause, Zooey tells Franny that one time when Zooey was on "It's a Wise Child," Seymour told him to shine his shoes. Since it was a radio show and the studio audiences were stupid, Zooey did not want to. But, Seymour told him to do it for the "Fat Lady." Zooey did and remembered the idea of the Fat Lady. Franny says that Seymour told her about the Fat Lady, too. Zooey interprets this image of the Fat Lady as being everyone. Every person, no matter how egotistical or stupid, then, deserves their respect. And the Fat Lady is not only every normal person, but she is Jesus Christ, too. After this revelation, Zooey and Franny get off the phone. Franny lies smiling at the ceiling, then falls asleep.