A Final Glory: The Novels of James Salter

Abstract

favor of all the writers in the world, wrote William Dean Howells, could not solely make a successful; and yet if the novelists liked it I should say it was surely a good novel (17). Howells knew firsthand the inconsequentiality of peer adulation upon popular success. Both he and his eminent contemporary Henry James published to the applause of their fellow novelists and the indifference of the public. The popular novelists of their day were Marie Corelli, Ian Maclaren, Anthony Hope, F. Hopkinson Smith, all long since buried in the graveyard of forgotten authors. Meanwhile Howells and James have reincarnated into golden birds of the literary aviary, nesting in every respectable bookstore in the country and exhibited before successive generations of students. Unquestionably this transformation depended, to some extent, on the response of a third component of the reading audience, the academic, as it accorded their novels the esteem of critical scrutiny. Ultimately, then, success depends upon all three estates of the reading audience: peers, public, and academy-each exerting its peculiar influence on the other two. One wonders how many novelists writing today have earned the respect of their fellow novelists, only to have their books collect more dust than fingerprints. We in the academy usually hear of such only after they have made a public splash or have been adopted by a sympathetic school of criticism. William Kennedy was such an unknown, admired in small literary circles exclusively, until Saul Bellow persuaded Viking to publish Ironweed after its editorial board had already rejected the book. The rest is the stuff of dreams: an enterprising editor hits upon a unique marketing approach, and the book becomes a bestseller and wins the Pulitzer Prize. Anne Tyler had published eight novels and was simply a writer's writer before her Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant got a rave review on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. Her next enjoyed equal acclaim and popularity, and her early books were reprinted and widely distributed. This so-called breakout phenomenon, as described by Joseph Barbato in his Publishers Weekly article, was exemplified most dramatically when John Irving's The World According to Garp appeared in 1978 and swept the imagination of the country, vaulting Irving fromnobscurity to fame and