Cassada Salter, James

Annotation:
Originally published in 1960 as THE ARM OF FLESH, this novel has been re-titled CASSADA and is extensively revised. It's the story of a group of young American Air Force officers in a fighter squadron stationed in Germany after World War II. Cassada is a naive young newcomer, and James Salter--who was himself an Air Force pilot during the war--uses Cassada's innocence as a filter through which to depict in vivid detail the sometimes grim and dangerous realities of Air Force life.

Author Bio

James Salter

Salter was born James Horowitz and attended New York City's Horace Mann School, where he published poetry in the school magazine. He then went to West Point, his father's alma mater, graduating in 1945. He spent 12 years in the Air Force as a fighter pilot and was based mainly in Europe, but he did serve in Korea, and his war experiences served as material for his first novel. (He has since repudiated his first two books, though one--THE ARM OF FLESH--was completely rewritten and published in 2000 as CASSADA.) Salter's first successful novel, A SPORT AND A PASTIME (1967), an erotic novel about an American man's romance with a Frenchwoman, was written when he lived in France from in the early '60s. In 1975, LIGHT YEARS was published--a novel about divorce, following which his own marriage broke up. Salter has written screenplays (most famously, Robert Redford's DOWNHILL RACER, in 1969) as well as novels, but is not a prolific writer--and he regrets that he didn't begin until he was in his mid-30s. Long considered an underestimated "writer's writer," Salter is revered for the clarity and precision of his language, and his deep insights into the lives of people who are often, in one way or another, peripheral--often artists or expatriates. He has two sons and two daughters. In 1997, he published his autobiography, BURNING THE DAYS.

Praise

Kirkus Reviews
"Only in the final third do things get going....In these last chapters, Salter's most compelling character--the villainous weather--comes to the fore, and the author finally releases some verbal tension....An instructive portrait of the flying life, but one that requires some patience to enjoy." 11/01/2000

New York Times
"CASSADA is a small gem, a lean, sinewy book that evokes a full and complex world of bitterness, striving and recklessness....[Salter's] final sentence...leaves the reader stunned, brooding over the heart-wrenching futility of things, and that is a measure of the quiet power of this wonderful little book." - Richard Bernstein 01/05/2001

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Cassada (Paperback)

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