Last Night

From a writer whose every book is a literary event, a superbly accomplished work of fiction. Last Night is a spellbinding collection of stories about passionby turns fiery and subdued, destructive and redemptive, alluring and devastating.
In ten powerful stories, Salter portrays men and women in their most intimate moments. A book dealer faces the truth about his lifeas it is and never will be againwhen he is visited unexpectedly by his brash former girlfriend. A lonely married woman, after a disturbing encounter with a drunken poet at a dinner party, finds herself irresistibly drawn to his animal surrogate, a huge tawny-eyed dog. A lover of poetry must come to terms with his wifes request to give up what may be his most treasured relationship. And in the title story, already hailed by Frank Conroy as a masterpiece, clearly and without question, a translator, tormented by an agonizing sense of inevitability, assists in his wifes suicide even as he performs a last betrayal.

A haunting symphony of desire, memory, and lossfrom a writer whose assured style and emotional insight make him one of our most compelling voices at work today.