The character, as Holden Caulfield, appears in Salinger's "Slight Rebellion off Madison", published in the December 21, 1946, issue of "The New Yorker". An earlier version of this story, titled "Are You Banging Your Head Against a Wall?" was accepted for publication by "The New Yorker" in October 1941, but was not published then because editors found the tone to be too desolate for its readership. An edited version of this short story later became the basis of several chapters in the middle-late section of "The Catcher in the Rye" dealing with Caulfield's date with Sally Hayes, during which he confesses his desire to run away with her, meets Carl Luce for drinks, and makes a drunken phone call to the Hayes' home. Unlike the similar sequence in the novel, Caulfield is on a Christmas break from school, and, in the story, the interlude with Sally is split into two occurrences. Also, the meeting with Carl Luce is considerably briefer in the story than in the novel.