James Salter

The author recounts his Manahattan youth and West Point education, his career as a combat pilot, and his life in the glamorous, international world of the writer

Recollection

Burning the Days

Andrew John Kinney

I loved this book, and related to it. There is one passage in which a society women asks Salter, years after he left the military and embarked on his literary career, why on earth he ever entered the military. Salter said images of flying over unknown beaches somewhere in the Pacific as an Air Force 
 pilot flooded his mind, and he thought, how can I explain to her the joy of such moments? Salter lived a full life, and I need to read more of his oeuvre - so far I've only read this, and The Hunters. We have much in common: military service, a love for France (Salter called it "the secular holy land"), an alma mater, and maybe a love of adrenaline. So I get him, I suppose. I need to read Light Years, and A Sport and a Pastime.

Burning the Days Recollection

Reviews