What is the author's style in A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter?

The novel's language is, in many ways, indicative of the literary period in which it was published, the 1960s. For one, his sentence structure shows that he is not beholden to the typical grammatical and literary conditions which were a strictly enforced orthodoxy until well into the 20th century. For example, he makes frequent use of short, staccato sentence fragments to achieve certain emotional and thematic effects. Though the story is basically linear and chronological, the flow of time is unclear from one scene to the next. The effect of this is that the story seems to pass almost drunkenly—one moment passes into another, the reader not understanding how one thing leads to the next—an appropriate tone for a story about a passionate and irresponsible love affair.