SOURCE: Salter, James and Edward Hirsch. “James Salter: The Art of Fiction 133.” Paris Review 35, no. 127 (summer 1993): 55-100.

In the following interview, Salter discusses his creative process, the influences on his work, and his favorite authors.

James Salter is a consummate storyteller. His manners are precise and elegant; he has a splendid New York accent; he runs his hands through his gray hair and laughs boyishly. At sixty-seven he has the fitness of an ex-military man. He tells anecdotes easily, dramatically, but he also carries an aura of reserve about him. There is a privacy one doesn't breach.

Salter was born in 1925 and raised in New York City. He graduated from West Point in 1945 and was commissioned in the U.S. Army Air Force as a pilot. He served for twelve years in the Pacific, the United States, Europe and Korea, where he flew over one hundred combat missions...