"The Heart of a Broken Story" is a short story by J.D.Salinger, published in the September 1941 issue of Esquire. The story was one of Salinger's first commercial successes and brought him welcomed attention as a young author.[1] In the story, he pokes fun at the formulaic boy meets girl stories that appear with regularity in many magazines during that era. The only story to be narrated by Salinger himself, it nonetheless shows his unwillingness to control his characters.