Dusk and Other Stories (Modern Library)

James Salter is an author with an impassioned following among contemporary readers, writers, and critics, and Dusk and Other Stories is among his signal achievements. First published nearly a quarter-century ago, and one of the very few short-story collections to win the PEN/Faulkner Award, this is American fiction at its most vital—each narrative a masterpiece of sustained power and seemingly effortless literary grace.

These stories chart the myriad moments and details that, taken together, shape a fate. Two New York attorneys newly flush with wealth embark on a dissolute tour of Italy. A divorced woman learns that she is about to lose the last thing of real value to her. An ambitious young screenwriter unexpectedly discovers the true meaning of art and glory. A rider, far off in the fields, is involved in an horrific accident—night is falling, and she must face her destiny alone.

Each of these stories is told with weighted calm, with a lingering mixture of precision and sudden revelation. They confirm James Salter as one of the finest writers of our time. 

Now available in paperback, the long-awaited first collection of short stories by the author of A Sport and a Pastime.

Dusk and Other Stones is James Salter's only short-story collection. Virtuosic and exquisitely compressed, these stories snow Salter at his best. The collection received the 1989 PEN/Faulkner Award.

James Salter is the author of the novels Solo Faces, Light Years, A Sport and a Pastime, The Arm of Flesh (revised as Cassada), and The Hunters; the memoirs Gods of Tin and Burning the Days; and the collection, Dusk and Other Stories which won the 1989 PEN/Faulkner Award. He lives in Colorado and on Long Island.

 

Philip Gourevitch is the author of We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, A Cold Case, and The Ballad of Abu Ghraib. He has served as editor of The Paris Review and is a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker.