Last Night: Stories - Hardcover

Salter, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0330441175 ISBN 13: 9780330441179

Publisher: Picador, 2006

Synopsis

In ten powerful stories, Salter portrays men and women in their most intimate moments. A book dealer faces the truth about his life―as it is and never will be again―when he is visited unexpectedly by his brash former girlfriend. A lonely married woman, after a disturbing encounter with a drunken poet at a dinner party, finds herself irresistibly drawn to his animal surrogate, a huge tawny-eyed dog. A lover of poetry must come to terms with his wife’s request to give up what may be his most treasured relationship. And in the title story, already hailed as 'a masterpiece, clearly and without question' a translator, tormented by an agonizing sense of inevitability, assists in his wife’s suicide even as he performs a last betrayal.

A haunting symphony of desire, memory and loss from a writer whose assured style and emotional insight make him one of our most compelling and important literary voices at work today.

'Salter is a writer who particularly rewards those for whom reading is an intense pleasure. He is among the very few North American writers all of whose work I want to read, whose as yet unpublished books I wait for impatiently' Susan Sontag

'Salter's prose is rare and stunning' John Irving

'James Salter is the contemporary writer most admired and envied by other writers . . . He can, when he wants, break your heart with a sentence' Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World

About this title

Review

'10 Updikean fictions set apart...by concision, watchfulness and lucidity, [and] the understated way they communicate the trickle effect of betrayal' -- Sunday Times

'A master of ecstatic prose fiction and non-fiction' -- Independent

'His passion for language exfoliates the senses’ -- Sunday Herald

'Last Night is a beautifully weighted collection... a deeply gratifying reminder of what reading is for’ -- Independent

'Literary canons are risible; however, he has written three books that everyone should read before they die' -- Independent

'The final story left me wishing that this slim collection was far longer than it is.' -- Sunday Herald

'There is a balance and precision...that reminds me of...Chopin, so moving, yet underpinned by tight mathematics' -- Sunday Herald

'There is a steady hum of eroticism beneath his narrative and in the voluptuous restraint of his style.' -- Daily Telegraph

‘Exceptional... [Salter’s] prose has an extraordinary confidence.' -- Daily Telegraph

‘Penetrating tales about life from an American master of fiction' -- Independent

Book Description

A spellbinding collection of stories about passion―by turns fiery and subdued, destructive and redemptive, alluring and devastating.

A haunting symphony of desire, memory and loss from an American master of fiction

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0330441175
• ISBN 13: 9780330441179
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 144