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 hotels are dark. All the great avenues are pointing to the...