James Salter, life is a pure fairy tale

It was sharp and funny as always. He humbly and humbly received compliments from those present and was overjoyed above all with one of the gifts: 1946 edition Billy Budd, sailorhis last novel Hermann Melville. He looked contented, optimistic, hopeful, perhaps even happy. He died six days later. He had a heart attack at the gym.

A final sequence that, because of its intensity and contrasts, sums up the American author’s life and may be part of one of the twenty-two stories collected in the publisher’s volume, Complete Stories. Salamander Published in Spain with an exceptional preface by John Banville.

Recognition

Two years before his death, Salter was able to enjoy the critical acclaim that had been stolen from him during his long career. It appeared in 2013, thirty-four years after publishing her last novel. there is everythingand the press of his country and the rest of the world seemed to have discovered it at that moment. “author writer”is a simple definition, as unfair as it is wrong, that connects him to the boredom of himself and of many of his readers. He called it “the unrecognized hero of American literature.” Observer. “The best writer you’ve never read” can be read in esquire.

So Salter admitted a few Interviews with international journalists, and I was lucky to be among the chosen ones. A few days before Christmas 2013, he opened the doors of the house where he lives with his second wife, who is also a writer. Kay Eldredgeinside Bridgehampton (Suffolk, New York).

We spent most of the day together talking about his two great passions, life and literature. The very characteristic, sparkling, inspiring gleam in his eyes did not disappear even when we had to flee so I wouldn’t miss the bus to take me back. Manhattan (NY).

“That encounter changed my life.and not only professionally, but personally”, I confess to his widow, whom I had the opportunity to speak again on the occasion of my arrival at the Spanish bookstores. full stories. “From where?” she asks me. “I started writing my first novel a few months after I met him,” I reply. Literary fate, very capricious, playful, makes our conversation while we are both traveling in the United States: he has recently arrived in Las Vegas (New Mexico) and I’m about to leave again and I Washington DC.before leaving for iowa city.

life and writing

Salter and Eldredge met in Aspen, Colorado, and they had a son named Theo in 1985, his first and fifth son (he had four children from his first marriage to Ann Artemus). They got married in 1998, and theirs was one of those sincere, loving relationships full of empathy and understanding that every writer aspires to have someday, and to translate that into the dedication of a book (“For Kay”, someone says. there is everything), not fiction.

“Jim always knew how to distinguish between life and writing. He tended to divide it into chapters, which didn’t mean he didn’t have time for his kids. He read the book to the first. Tolstoy biography, Henri Troyat and then, for us, Three Musketeers. He took them skiing, they went for a walk together. taught Theo to play hockey on ice. But he also wanted to share his love of writing with them and talked about it. Graham Greenerelated to Saul Bellowsby Peter Matthiessen and Vladimir Nabokov, all I’ve met. Probably thanks to Jim, his second daughter, Nina, became a successful editor in Paris.”

“He considered time spent writing to be the most important thing, but he also wanted to live, travel, and so he did. Or we did.”

real name is Salter James Arnold Horowitzreading west pointHe served as a fighter pilot at the United States Military Academy. Korean War (1950-1953). The night gave birth to a piece of her first novel in the moments stolen from the competition, Avcılar (Salamandra, 2020), published 1956. play and distractionsublime expression I love youAnd light yearsthe story of the sunset that love always requires) interspersed with poetry, short stories, autobiographies, cookbooks, essays, correspondence throughout his career. Wrote screenplays for Hollywood and even direct a movie, Fly (1969), with charlotte ramp as the protagonist.

James Salter and his second wife, Kay Eldredge, who is also a writer.

“While in the army, he decided to become a writer, but wished to be many things: architect, art dealer, business genius. He started writing in his early thirties. his time devoted to writing was the most important thing, but he also wanted to live, travel, and he did, or we did. rich. He knew how to spend money in order to be. I had to make money enrich life”. reality and fiction. Fiction and reality. A difficult balance that Salter never neglected, impossible for many. “I thought writing was paramount. I wasn’t working every day, but I wish I could,” Eldredge recalls.

real fiction

He was very meticulous. handwritten. When his eldest son sent him letters from boarding school, he would correct them and add suggestions for improvement to his answers. He always carried a notebook in his pocket, where he took notes, noted things that caught his attention, parts of speech. He distrusted writers who dared to fabricate everything. For him, real fiction came from life.

Author James Salter was a fighter pilot at the time. IYS

there was one fascinating relationship with reading. “I used to read a lot as a kid and throughout school, but after I was 40 I rarely read an entire book. When I went to a bookstore to browse, I would look at the cover and the title, read the title of the book and something in the middle. I’d decide if it’s good or not.

He was dedicated to his work Isaac Babel and read till the end amber-eyed rabbit (Cliff, 2010), by Edmund de Waal. “As a writer, I didn’t want to be influenced by what others were doing, and I didn’t read often when I was writing, except maybe someone like me. john donneDid he want his books to outlive him, to outlast him? “Yes, I was waiting. Something almost all writers crave.”

“As a writer, I didn’t want to be influenced by what others were doing and I didn’t read while I was writing”

A few days after our conversation, Eldredge opened a box containing six copies of the Spanish edition. full stories her husband said, “So you’re ready!” she finally told me email It is the editor who is responsible for making this happen for all Salter readers in our country, which we exchange. Anik Lapointe. It has a long history with the American writer and began in the 19th century. Frankfurt Book Fair 1998. There, “in a tiny and sterile room of a German hotel” he read Salter for the first time. book light years.

discovery

“My surprise and emotion at his discovery was overwhelming. a classic of american literature who was still alive I fulfilled my professional obligations by day and immersed myself in reading his subtractive, evocative and beautiful prose at night. light yearsReleased in 1975! And that was my book at the 1998 Frankfurt Fair, which I was able to publish in El Aleph a year later.”

“The prose has the secret magic of words to pass on emotions to new generations,” says its editor.

Since then, the editor has never ceased to advocate and recommend Salter in Spain, and light years It remains one of the bedside books. “He was a wordsmith. Their work has basically two similarities. On the one hand, the style and rhythm of prose that the jeweler makes is reclusive and sensual at the same time. On the other hand, a narrator who plays very subtly with the fate of his characters”.

Lapointe said, “Unlike many of Salter’s characters, Spanish publishers showed great loyalty to him. over the years”. They also appeared in El Aleph. Light years, Twilight, Game and distraction, Fighter pilots And in isolation. Years later, almost all of his remaining works and new translations were published already in Salamandra.

And in 2025 for its 100th anniversary Spanish translation of some unpublished texts. “He yearned for success and critical support, and he did so with his latest book as if he were keeping up with his own time for the first time. Rereading it ten years after his death and 66 years after his first novel, his work has not lost a bit of its modernity, and his prose has not lost a bit of its modernity, passing on emotions to new generations. Words have a secret charm to them.” Because great literature is never late.