Last Night: Stories

Last Night: Stories

Rating

8.5

The Pequod Review:

Last Night is James Salter’s second short story collection, published seventeen years after his first (Dusk and Other Stories, 1988). The ten stories are not quite as uniformly strong as those in the earlier volume, but Salter’s sentences and paragraphs remain stunning:

She was still young enough to be good-looking, the final blaze of it, though she was too old for children, at least if she had anything to say about it. Summer was coming. Out of the afternoon haze she would appear, in her black bathing suit, limbs all tan, the brilliant sun behind her. She was the strong figure walking up the smooth sand from the sea, her legs, her wet swimmer’s hair, the grace of her, all careless and unhurried.

Recommended.