James Salter was the next in line to read. It was a hard audience -- we were already distracted and fidgety and I myself was composing the story in my head to tell my husband later that night. But after a few sentences we began to pay attention; after a page or two, we were spellbound. I do not use the word lightly. The entire room was absolutely enchanted -- he held us in his two fingers as he turned the pages of his manuscript. The story he read, ironically, was of a woman enchanted by a dog.
James Salter is no dog, however -- he is well dressed and handsome, and kind. I took a weekend workshop with him and he said something no writing teacher has ever said in any other class of mine -- he said there are many different kinds of ways to write.
The few facts I know about him I learned in a Paris Review interview (in a later edition he appears wearing a shirt that says "Lu Lu") -- he was in the military, he has written screenplays, he travels. The more important things I've learned by reading what he has written. His novel Light Years is something I pick up again and again and each time I find some marvelous sentence I'd previously missed. All of his sentences are thoughtful, and I find them very profound but not at all pedantic. He is remarking on life, not trying to direct it -- like a wonderful storyteller with a beautiful voice.
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