“Nothing ‘important’ comes at the reader straight in ‘American Express,’ and whenever I try to pinpoint what it is that makes Salter such a distinct writer, this is where I poke around for answers.”
“Above all, it must be compelling,” James Salter told the Paris Review in 1993 when asked about his idea of the short story. “You’re sitting around the campfire of literature, so to speak, and various voices speak up out of the dark and begin talking. With some, your mind wanders or you doze off, but with others you are held by every word. The first line, the first sentence, the first paragraph, all have to compel you.” Long before I ever read those remarks by Salter, I’d already come under the influence of his short stories and, in particular, his […]
“Nostalgia, of course, is the most powerful form of lust: portable as your memories, infinitely rechargeable, and impossible to slake.” Dan Keane reviews James Salter’s new novel, All That Is.
