James Salter's final novel is a big-hearted and wistful tale of a man's life starting with his service in the Navy in World War II and running through a career in publishing in New York, a marriage, and several relationships. Ultimately the character, Bowman, looks down at a his legs, which "seemed to belong to an older man." That is one theme: that life, snap, is over quickly. But here as with the rest of the novel, themes are struck in minor key; there is no sledgehammer. Salter writes with a reticence and an elegance that propels the characters through the decades almost magically. The world goes by, but we almost never are subjected to it: Vietnam makes a passing appearance, Picasso and Francis Bacon show up, but the world of the characters is mostly stripped clean, leaving a lean and compulsively readable novel. A lesser writer would have labored and elaborated with greater might to lesser effect.
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