Writing about writers, editors and publishers
By Billy Cheung |
June 2, 2013, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
AWARD-WINNING author James Salter, who completed his last full-length book more than 30 years ago, has released a new novel that chronicles a life drawn from many of his own experiences.
Like Salter, the main character in "All That Is" leaves the military to embark on a literary career. Unlike Salter, Philip Bowman becomes an editor after failing to find work as a writer.
Salter is considered by many one of the best postwar American novelists and short-story writers. His books include "The Hunters," "Burning the Days" and "Dusk and Other Stories," for which he won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1989.
The new book spans several decades and explores Bowman's fleeting personal relationships in a bygone era of independent, clubby publishing houses.
The 87-year-old Salter discussed that literary world, why he wrote the book and his writing process.
Q: What does the title mean?
A: It has two meanings and they're not the same but they overlap. One is all that is to life, and the other is all that is in life. They're not exactly the same, but your understanding shifts between the two without recognizing it.
Q: After so long since your last novel, why write this?
A: I was writing other things ... There was no professional reason. I became interested in it through editors I knew. In the beginning, I didn't know any editors. My first book was published without any editorial advice ... I merely took the book and published it.
It was not until I began to write "Light Years" that an editor really stepped in. He was Joe Fox at Random House and he edited a subsequent book. I got to know him very well personally as well as professionally. And through another editor after him, Robert Gay, I became gradually more interested in their lives and that world of publishing.
They are involved in leisurely things like reading books, having lunch with writers and agents - it is all really beautiful, so I thought I would write something about it.
Q: Describe the process.
A: I spent a lot of time pre-writing. I have three big notebooks filled with notes about what people, places and things might be in this book. It took a long time to write those, then I was paring away.
Q: The main protagonist, Philip Bowman, has very few serious attachments, whether material possessions or relationships. Is there a message?
A: No lesson but I hope it's read with pleasure. The book is the journey of a life. If you search in it as you do at the end of a college course, you can come up with questions. Did he learn from experience? Was he emotionally stunted? Is this an example of the moral degeneration of an era?
None of these questions is that relevant. You are not going to get an answer from the book - the book is what it is. It is meant to give some idea of the life of an editor in a publishing house. I think it is an admirable and interesting life, and being an editor can be potentially deeply satisfying.
Q: There's no definitive conclusion. How should readers think about the end?
A: With the last female relationship, he says and thinks certain things regarding her. To me it's plain that he anticipates they are going to be together for a long time. The book does not say that precisely but it does say he wondered if they didn't get married, would they stay together.
Could they possibly have a life such as people have in art? By that, I mean painters' and sculptors' lives - that life of art that is superior to ordinary mores and behavior. There are levels of art and writing and they live on a certain level that I think we instinctually envy. That is the level that he said perhaps they would live on. There is so much implied in the book that if you don't read it with openness to its implications rather than to its literal text, then you would miss what this book is about.
Like Salter, the main character in "All That Is" leaves the military to embark on a literary career. Unlike Salter, Philip Bowman becomes an editor after failing to find work as a writer.
Salter is considered by many one of the best postwar American novelists and short-story writers. His books include "The Hunters," "Burning the Days" and "Dusk and Other Stories," for which he won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1989.
The new book spans several decades and explores Bowman's fleeting personal relationships in a bygone era of independent, clubby publishing houses.
The 87-year-old Salter discussed that literary world, why he wrote the book and his writing process.
Q: What does the title mean?
A: It has two meanings and they're not the same but they overlap. One is all that is to life, and the other is all that is in life. They're not exactly the same, but your understanding shifts between the two without recognizing it.
Q: After so long since your last novel, why write this?
A: I was writing other things ... There was no professional reason. I became interested in it through editors I knew. In the beginning, I didn't know any editors. My first book was published without any editorial advice ... I merely took the book and published it.
It was not until I began to write "Light Years" that an editor really stepped in. He was Joe Fox at Random House and he edited a subsequent book. I got to know him very well personally as well as professionally. And through another editor after him, Robert Gay, I became gradually more interested in their lives and that world of publishing.
They are involved in leisurely things like reading books, having lunch with writers and agents - it is all really beautiful, so I thought I would write something about it.
Q: Describe the process.
A: I spent a lot of time pre-writing. I have three big notebooks filled with notes about what people, places and things might be in this book. It took a long time to write those, then I was paring away.
Q: The main protagonist, Philip Bowman, has very few serious attachments, whether material possessions or relationships. Is there a message?
A: No lesson but I hope it's read with pleasure. The book is the journey of a life. If you search in it as you do at the end of a college course, you can come up with questions. Did he learn from experience? Was he emotionally stunted? Is this an example of the moral degeneration of an era?
None of these questions is that relevant. You are not going to get an answer from the book - the book is what it is. It is meant to give some idea of the life of an editor in a publishing house. I think it is an admirable and interesting life, and being an editor can be potentially deeply satisfying.
Q: There's no definitive conclusion. How should readers think about the end?
A: With the last female relationship, he says and thinks certain things regarding her. To me it's plain that he anticipates they are going to be together for a long time. The book does not say that precisely but it does say he wondered if they didn't get married, would they stay together.
Could they possibly have a life such as people have in art? By that, I mean painters' and sculptors' lives - that life of art that is superior to ordinary mores and behavior. There are levels of art and writing and they live on a certain level that I think we instinctually envy. That is the level that he said perhaps they would live on. There is so much implied in the book that if you don't read it with openness to its implications rather than to its literal text, then you would miss what this book is about.
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