A Sport and a Pastime: A Novel - Softcover

Salter, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865472106 ISBN 13: 9780865472105

Publisher: North Point Press, 1985

Synopsis

A Sport and a Pastime is an astonishing performance, the classic novel from a remarkable writer whose sentences bristle with a singular passion. Salter chronicles a love affair between a young shopgirl and an American college dropout against the backdrop of provincial France. The narrator's cool distillation of events-real or imagined-makes the book both lyrical and tightly, dangerously pitched.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"A Sport and a Pastime is as nearly perfect as any American fiction
I know," Reynolds Price wrote of James Salter's 1967 novel that tells of the mismatched love affair between Phillip Dean, a Yale dropout adrift in Europe, and Anne-Marie Costallat, a young French shopgirl. An erotic tour de force, licentious yet pure, it is also a hymn to provincial France and has been admired and quoted from since its first publication. Its stunning knowledge and insight have the power to change lives.
        It brings a kind of splendor to the life that refuses to bow to conven-
tion or mores, and, like Cavafy's poems, evokes the illicit in a way that endows it with an astonishing beauty. Brilliantly written and overwhelming in its effect, it remains a triumph on every level.

About the Author:

James Salter was born in New Jersey in 1926 and is the author of The Hunters, The Arm of Flesh, Solo Faces, Light Years, Dusk and Other Stories (winner of the 1989 PEN/Faulkner Award), and a memoir, Burning the Days. He lives in Aspen, Colorado, and Long Island, New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: North Point Press
• Publication date: 1985
• ISBN 10: 0865472106
• ISBN 13: 9780865472105
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192