Criticism > Short Story Criticism > Salter, James - Freddie Baveystock (review date 25 May 1990)

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Freddie Baveystock (review date 25 May 1990)

SOURCE: Baveystock, Freddie. “Fading out and Flaring up.” Times Literary Supplement (25 May 1990): 558.

[In the following positive review, Baveystock commends Salter's clear and uncluttered prose in Dusk and Other Stories.]

The eleven stories in James Salter's first collection of short fiction [Dusk] are curiously timeless, yet unerringly evocative of a time not long past. This edition fudges the question as to when they were written by declaring some to be new while “others were published individually over a span of years”. Salter himself omits anything which might date his fiction: there are no references to current events, no brand names, and meals remain unpriced. This is entirely characteristic of Salter's style, which is as spare and uncluttered as possible, a note struck from the first paragraph of the first story, “Am Strande von Tanger”: “Barcelona at dawn. The...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Richard Eder (review date 17 February 1988)
   2. Ned Rorem (review date 6 March 1988)
   3. Peter Wild (review date winter 1989)
   4. Freddie Baveystock (review date 25 May 1990)
   5. Richard Burgin (review date 1990)
   6. James Salter and Edward Hirsch (interview date summer 1993)
   7. William Dowie (essay date 1998)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright