Cassada

"Terse and exact about the work they do," as his many admirers know, describes the fiction of James Salter too (although The Dig makes even Salter seem a little gabby!). He's better known for his later novels, but the economy and grace that have built his legend are fully present in this book, his second, and you can't help but imagine his style came organically from his early subject matter, Air Force fighter pilots in the '50s (he was such a pilot himself). The fliers in Cassada, who have no war to test themselves against, don't have much to say, but everything they do—playing hearts, joshing with a German waitress, and attempting a landing with low fuel and blinding cloud cover—feels like an performance of manhood: graceful, anxious, and yes, brave.