Salter on Salter

It’s a major event in the world of letters each time James Salter completes a new work. Anticipating the publication of Salter’s seventh novel, All That Is, a dazzlingly adult, sexy, and heartbreaking book that captures what passes between men and women over a lifetime, we asked the woman who knows him best—Salter’s wife of thirty-seven years, Kay Eldredge, a playwright and novelist herself—to share with us Salter’s views on life, love, work, and how writing is the most demanding and satisfying of all mistresses.

James Salter has done all the interviews he’s prepared to do for the moment. As his wife, I probably know him as well as he knows himself, so I’m conducting an insider’s interview and taking the liberty, with his approval, of both asking and answering these questions.