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Intro
College student Lane Coutell is waiting at the train station for his girlfriend Franny Glass and rereading a love letter she sent him. Though Lane is excited to see Franny, he acts cool toward her when she arrives, even pretending not to know what she’s talking about when she asks if he received her letter. Meanwhile, Franny is effusive in order to hide her indifference toward Lane, about which she feels guilty.
Lane and Franny go to a restaurant, where Lane monologues about a paper he wrote, a psychoanalysis of Gustave Flaubert. Franny tells Lane he sounds like one of the wretched graduate students who, when they substitute-teach for professors, ruin great writers for college students. Then she apologizes and excuses herself to the bathroom, where she bursts into tears and hugs a little book that she takes from her purse. After she returns the book to her purse and fixes her makeup, she goes back to Lane.
When Lane asks how Franny’s play is going, Franny admits that she quit the theater department because she felt as though all actors, herself included, were disgusting egomaniacs. Lane notes that she’s sweating. Franny, embarrassed, refuses the nice handkerchief and empties her bag on the table looking for Kleenex. Lane asks about the little book. Franny tells him it’s called The Way of the Pilgrim: it’s a Russian book about a peasant who accesses mystical experience by unceasingly praying the Jesus Prayer. As Franny talks excitedly, Lane first focuses on his food and then interrupts Franny to ask whether she believes in this religious stuff. Franny claims that she just finds it fascinating that both Western and Eastern traditions believe in accessing mystical experience through repetitive prayer. Lane claims that religion is a psychological phenomenon and then changes the subject by proclaiming his love for Franny. Franny excuses herself again, walks to the bar, and faints. When she wakes up, Lane hovers over her anxiously. She asks him to go get her some water. After he leaves, she begins praying silently.
The next week, Zooey Glass, a beautiful actor, is taking a bath and rereading a four-year-old letter from his older brother Buddy, in which Buddy tries to explain why he and Seymour—the oldest Glass brother, who died by suicide—tried to teach mystical religious wisdom to their youngest siblings, Zooey and Franny. After rereading the letter, Zooey begins reading a TV script—but he drops it on the bathmat when his mother, Mrs. Glass, knocks on the door. Mrs. Glass enters the bathroom, asks why Zooey hasn’t talked to Franny yet, and complains that her husband Les Glass hasn’t realized the severity of Franny’s breakdown. Zooey yells that he’s exiting the tub and that his mother needs to leave the bathroom. She does.
A few minutes later, Zooey is half-dressed and shaving at the bathroom mirror when Mrs. Glass returns and asks whether it would be worth getting Franny to talk to one of the other Glass brothers, Waker, a Catholic priest. Zooey claims that Franny’s problem is “non-sectarian.” Mrs. Glass says she knows what Franny’s problem is: Franny’s boyfriend Lane has called the house and told her that Franny’s breakdown was due to a fanatically religious book she got from the library. Zooey calls Lane a superficial charmer and criticizes Mrs. Glass for not realizing where Franny actually got the book—from Seymour’s desk. When Mrs. Glass reminds Zooey that she never enters Seymour and Buddy’s old room, Zooey apologizes but then explodes, claiming that Seymour and Buddy turned him and Franny into “freaks.”
Mrs. Glass and Zooey fight about whether Franny would benefit from psychotherapy—Mrs. Glass thinks she might, whereas Zooey believes the average psychotherapist would only make Franny worse. Then Zooey offers to tell Mrs. Glass about The Way of A Pilgrim. When she agrees, he explains that it’s about the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” Mrs. Glass asks whether Franny has been reciting this prayer. Zooey suggests that Mrs. Glass ask Franny herself. Then he tells Mrs. Glass to leave: he needs to get ready for an appointment. Mrs. Glass, leaving, says that she doesn’t know what happened to her seven children; back when they were the precocious young hosts of the radio show “It’s A Wise Child,” they seemed not only intelligent but also kind and happy.
Franny is asleep on the sofa when Zooey enters the living room and shakes her awake. Franny says she had a nightmare involving Professor Tupper, who hates her. When Zooey asks about him, Franny explains that he’s the pretentious teacher of her religion seminar. Then Franny asks Zooey about his latest script. Zooey explains that he met with a scriptwriter, Dick Hess, the previous night. He now has two scripts, one from producer Mr. LeSage, the other from Dick Hess. Both scripts are trite, trend-chasing, and mediocre. Zooey admits that he has almost convinced a Frenchman he knows to adapt an exciting French novel, but he doesn’t want to leave New York City for France—he hates it when artists jet around rather than remaining connected to their roots. Zooey also says that he hates criticizing people and making them feel terrible. When Franny says that’s exactly how she criticized Lane the day of the Yale game, Zooey says that Seymour and Buddy turned Zooey and Franny into “freaks with freakish standards.”
Franny begins harshly criticizing her college experience, which focuses on acquiring knowledge while ignoring true wisdom. Zooey asks whether her attempts to acquire spiritual knowledge through the Jesus Prayer aren’t equally bad. Shaken, Franny tells him she’s asked herself the same thing—that’s why she’s having a breakdown. Zooey criticizes her theatrical breakdown for hurting their parents and for being sanctimonious. He doesn’t think it’s fair of her to hate inauthentic people like Professor Tupper personally rather than just fighting the system that encourages inauthenticity. He also tells her that she doesn’t understand Jesus, who insisted in the Gospel that the most wretched human beings—Professor Tupper, for instance—were more valuable to God than the cutest, cuddliest baby animals. Zooey, falling silent, realizes that Franny is weeping inconsolably. He flees to Seymour and Buddy’s old room, where he sits in silence for a long time and then picks up Buddy’s phone, a private line.
Mrs. Glass is trying to convince an unwilling Franny to eat some chicken soup when they hear the phone ring. Mrs. Glass goes into her bedroom and then comes back and tells Franny it’s Buddy calling for her. Hesitantly, Franny enters her parents’ bedroom and picks up the phone. When the voice on the other end asks after her, Franny complains that Zooey has been criticizing her all morning, which makes her feel like she’s an asylum inmate and another one of the inmates is pretending to be her doctor.
When the voice responds flippantly, Franny realizes that the voice is not Buddy but Zooey. She demands that he say whatever he has to say. Zooey asks her how she’ll recognize true spiritual teaching when she doesn’t realize the holy love inherent in, for example, Mrs. Glass’s chicken soup. Then he tells her that he and Buddy went to one of her plays without her knowledge once, that she’s an excellent actress, and that she should keep acting—acting for God, if she wants to. He tells her how, back when the Glass children were radio show hosts, Seymour used to tell him to shine his shoes for “the Fat Lady.” Franny shares that Seymour used to tell her to be funny for the Fat Lady, too. Zooey tells Franny that every single audience member, including Professor Tupper, is the Fat Lady—and the Fat Lady is Jesus. Then Zooey hangs up. Franny, ecstatic, climbs into her parents’ bed and falls into a peaceful sleep.
