All That Is

Reviews / Votes

A beautiful novel, with sufficient love, heartbreak, vengeance, identity confusion, longing, and euphoria of language to have satisfied Shakespeare -- John Irving The best novel I've read in years. All That Is will be treasured by its readers. Salter's vivid, lucid prose does exquisite justice to his subject - the relentless struggle to make good on our own humanity -- Tim O'Brien Effortlessly beautiful, funny, sexy and wise - the kind of novel that makes you want to delete your own meagre work-in-progress and start over -- Julie Myerson * The Observer * Not in my (admittedly failing) memory have I read a novel that, at its crucialest moment, made me just stand straight up out of my chair and have to walk around the room for several minutes. Laid into the customary Salterish verbal exquisiteness and vivid intelligence is such remarkable audacity and dark-hued verve about us poor humans -- Richard Ford * The Guardian * Masculine, clear-cut, ravishingly sensual * The Sunday Telegraph * I loved James Salter's beguiling, brilliant, worldly, sexy novel All That Is -- Simon Sebag Montefiore, Books of the Year * Evening Standard * This masterpiece is a smooth, absorbing narrative studded with bright particulars. If God is in the details, this book is divine -- Edmund White 'Enthralling . . . A vividly imagined and beautifully written evocation of a postwar world.' John Banville 'A consistently elegant and enjoyable novel, full of verve and wisdom' Julian Barnes 'Richard Ford calls him 'the Master', Bellow was an admirer, Roth, too' Daily Telegraph 'Its handling of time, its elliptical wisdom, and its occasional chest-tightening cruelties are masterful; every paragraph is quietly, carefully good . . . an inordinately vigorous novel' Observer 'Salter's breathlessly simple prose is often exquisite . . . as richly sensual as anything Hemingway wrote' Sunday Times 'In telling this drama, Salter gives us joy, eroticism, disgust, beauty, nostalgia, outrage, highbrow discussion and lowbrow humour . . . Salter has produced a novel that will last longer than the distractions that might keep us from it.' The Times Salter's first novel in more than 30 years, which follows the loves and losses of a World War II veteran, is an ambitious departure from his previous work and, at a stroke, demolishes any talk of twilight -- 100 Notable Books of 2013 * New York Times * The first Salter novel for more than 30 years is a rare treat for fans of his distinctive prose . . . The main attraction is not the narrative, though - it's the beauty of Salter's words. -- Books of the Year * Financial Times * 'Salter is the contemporary writer most admired and envied by other writers . . . he can, when he wants, break your heart with a sentence' Michael Dirda, Washington Post 'James Salter can suggest in a single sentence an individual's entire history' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times 'There is scarcely a writer alive who could not learn from his passion and precision of language' Peter Matthiessen 'Salter is a writer who particularly rewards those for whom reading is an intense pleasure. He is among the very few North American writers all of whose work I want to read, whose as yet unpublished books I wait for impatiently.' Susan Sontag 'A sweeping, precise, heartfelt and wondrous tale of American life, a book that somehow manages to deal with everyday existence, yet elevate that familiar tale to something deep and profound' Big Issue 'Salter's descriptions of places are second to none' Daily Express 'In James Salter's terrific new novel . . . we've followed him unhurriedly through several decades of love affairs, friendships and foreign travels - all of them rendered with astonishing concision and jolting vividness' Daily Mail 'In All That Is, the simplest lines hit the hardest . . . Salter describes with perfect clarity the brutal new awareness that comes of heartbreak' Sunday Herald 'American literary favourite Salter, who has been credited as an influence by writers such as Joyce Carol Oates releases his first novel since 1979 . . . It's official: no one writes about war, love and sex like he does. Unmissable' Easy Living 'All That Is is the story of a life . . . it is a river that meanders, that surges ahead and then is becalmed' Esquire 'All That Is is the equal of such great novels as A Sport and a Pastime, Light Years and his memoir, Burning the Days. That is to say, it is delectable' Evening Standard 'Salter has produced a strange masterpiece' Independent i 'The everyday may be one of the hardest things to write about - the quotidian doings, including the outright tedium, of ordinary life . . . But to pull it off . . . that is a crowning achievement and it's Mr. Salter's to claim' International Herald Tribune 'He makes every word count' Literary Review 'Part of the Roth/Updike/Bellow generation of Great American Novelists, James Salter deserves a place among them: All That Is should finally gain him membership' Mail on Sunday 'All That Is has few equals . . . Rhapsodic and marvelling, with a treasurable lack of cynicism and a 1950s-ish directness, Salter's style is sensory without being exactly lyrical' New Statesman 'An easy novel to enjoy thanks to Salter's mastery of language and an attention to detail that brings even minor characters to life' Sunday Mercury 'Salter is very good at showing the inconsequentiality of so much that happens . . . Salter is good on the selfishness and carelessness of the rich - there's an echo of Scott Fitzgerald here - and the neediness of the poor' Scotsman 'Salter's genius has been to invoke the ancient muses to chant about modern existence, making the ordinary revelatory of heroism, tragedy and mystery in a secular world' Times Literary Supplement Salter at his bitter-sweet best -- Books of the Year * New Statesman * All That Is by James Salter is, no question, the best novel I have read this year - by a lot . . . continuous authorial decisions about just what happens next that'll absolutely drop your jaw in admiration -- Richard Ford, Books of the Year * Financial Times * The most brilliant novel I have read in years. Surgically precise, yet embracing vast landscapes of elusive love, death and sex, it distils whole lives into a single page. I felt more alive, more fully myself, when I finished it -- Caroline Daniel, The FT's Summer Books 2015 * Financial Times *