"The Catcher in the Rhine" is a fantasy short story by Harry Turtledove, published in The Chick is in the Mail, edited by Esther Friesner, Baen, 2000 and reprinted in the omnibus Chicks Ahoy! (2010). It was reprinted in Atlantis and Other Places, also in 2010. There is a readable edition on Baen's website. Among Chicks stories, the story is unusual (but not unique) for having a man as the POV character.
The story is pastiche-cum-sequel of J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye. The narrator of the story, an American youth traveling through Europe to "find himself" makes a fateful stop in Isenstein, Germany, where he is transported through time, and is forced to rescue the ValkyrieBrunhild. While the German characters of the story misinterpret his name as "Hagen Kriemheld", the narrator's correct name is never stated explicitly. Implicitly, "Kriemheld" is Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of Salinger's work. Caulfield, having no idea of German mythology, fails to understand who and what Brunhild is. The story ends with Caulfield stuck in Medival Germany with no resources or skills appropriate to that environment, and it is unclear what would happen to him.
In his foreword to the story when published in Atlantis and Other Places Turtledove states that the story originated from his daughter Rachel having misstated the name of Salinger's novel as a reference to the Rhine River. Her father immediately realized that this would be a good title for a story and set out to write a story fitting it. After selling the story he gave Rachel her rightful share of the money.
