From Publishers Weekly
Salter is one of the great writers about flying, and this short novel was revised, at the suggestion of Counterpoint editor Jack Shoemaker, from a book originally called The Arm of Flesh when it was first published nearly 40 years ago. (Salter's first novel, The Hunters, was also revised for republication three years ago.) It is set in Germany a few years after the war, when the U.S. Air Force was still maintaining airfields and flying practice sorties, and when bad weather, particularly heavy cloud and fog, could still cause problems at smaller landing fields. Cassada is a young lieutenant, sent to join the unit at the center of the story, who is determined to be a star in the target gunnery contests in which the pilots indulge, and who in the end is part of a disaster when he and a colleague fly too far and run out of fuel in heavy rain before they can land. Salter's subtle, understated prose has been justly praised, even if at times it hovers perilously close to Hemingway parody, and the best scenes here portray the tensions of the men on the ground as they wait for planes to land safely. Salter's feeling for weather and for the dark mysteries of solitary flight are exemplary, and it is only in the rather mundane scenes of family life on base and the barely hidden rivalries and jealousies that the book is less than compelling. It is certainly worth reading for the frequent pleasures of Salter's writing and for the originality of the setting, but it in no way compares with his brilliant A Sport and a Pastime and Light Years. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World
"He can, when he wants, break your heart with a sentence."


From Booklist
Especially since Dusk and Other Stories (1988), Salter's fiction has commanded considerable respect, and expectations should be high for this extensive rewriting of his second novel (originally published as The Arm of Flesh in 1961). Here he brings his deft, often spare prose to bear on the story of a group of air force pilots flying training missions in Europe during the cold war. The characters are sharply realized, especially through extended scenes of dialogue; their relationships, their failed or incomplete or squashed attempts at expression, are fully displayed. Salter's style and approach may engage readers not usually drawn to military stories, especially in the case of Cassada, who is "solitary and unboisterous . . . intelligent but not cerebral" and whose ambition leads to tragic consequences. As in most of Salter's fiction, there is seemingly simple but clearly controlled, accomplished prose to marvel at throughout: "It's silent and cold. He lies in bed aching, too ancient to move. Out there, somewhere, more silent still, in the matted grass the wreckages lie, blown apart in the darkness, wet as the ground." James O'Laughlin
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FROM OUR EDITORS

If ever there was a writer's writer, it's James Salter, author of A Sport and a Pastime, a masterpiece of 20th-century American fiction. In writing Cassada, Salter chose to revisit his second book, The Arm of Flesh, first published in 1961 and, as he writes in his introduction, "largely a failure." One often wonders how great writers view their early literary efforts, and how, with age and experience, they might have transformed those experiments into art. With Cassada Salter has successfully re-created "the book the other might have been."

--Cary Goldstein

FROM THE PUBLISHER

James Salter revisits his second novel, The Arm of Flesh, making extensive changes and rewriting many portions entirely. The resulting work—Cassada—combines the untamed vision of a young military pilot with the clarity and power of a masterful writer.

James Salter is one of America's greatest prose stylists. His first two novels, The Hunters and The Arm of Flesh, are legendary in military circles for their descriptions of aerial combat. A former Air Force pilot who flew F-86 fighters in Korea, Salter writes with matchless insight about the terror and exhilaration of a pilot in wartime.

The lives of officers in an Air Force squadron in occupied Europe encompass the contradictions of military experience and the men's response to a young newcomer, bright and ambitious, whose fate is to be an emblem of their own. In Cassada, Salter captures the strange comradeship of loneliness, trust, and alienation among military men ready to sacrifice all in the name of duty and pride.

One of America￯﾿ﾽs greatest prose stylists, James Salter is often praised by literary readers for the clear, shimmering surface of his writing. His first two novels, The Hunters and The Arm of Flesh, are also known in military circles, where his descriptions of flying and combat are legendary. A former Air Force pilot who flew F-86 fighters in Korea, Salter writes with matchless insight about the terror and exhilaration that accompany a pilot in wartime.

In returning to The Arm of Flesh forty years after writing it, Salter has identified structural weaknesses that have caused him to reconsider his second novel altogether. He is now engaged in a complete reworking of the narrative, an all-but-new novel entitled Cassada. The lives of officers in an Air Force squadron in occupied Europe—Captains Isbell and Wickenden, Lieutenants Sisse, Godchaux, Grace, and others—encompass the contradictions of military experience and in particular the response to a young newcomer, bright and ambitious, whose fate is to be an emblem of their own. In Cassada, Salter captures a strange comradeship of loneliness, trust, and alienation among military men ready to sacrifice all in the name of duty and pride.

FROM THE CRITICS

Paul West

That opening image of the two lost planes lingers throughout, evoking the dark, perilous stuff that aviators and pilot-scribes, from Saint-Exup￯﾿ﾽry and Richard Hillary to Hanna Reitsch, work in.

Richard Bernstein

A small gem, a lean, sinewy book that evokes a full and complex world of bitterness, striving and recklessness..... His final sentence leaves the reader stunned, brooding over the heart-wrenching futility of things, and that is a measure of the quiet power of this wonderful little book.

Mark Levine

The air is thin in the heights through which Salter steers his characters, the prose moves at breakneck speed, and the book's emotional impact is devastating.￯﾿ﾽ Cassada is a masterpiece, a book in which men wage an elemental battle for survival against invisible forces.

Gail Caldwell

A beautiful stylist, he handles words as though they were fine marble: all angles and chiseled perfection, in search of the ideal form.... Cassada turns out to be a small flame that burns pure.

Benjamin Kunkel