The 87-year-old American novelist, James Salter, will be publishing a new novel next year – his first in 34 years. John Dugdale puts the hiatus in context:
Salter can claim to be neither the oldest still-active US novelist (Herman Wouk, 96, landed a book deal earlier this year) nor the one with the biggest gap between books. True, his 34-year hiatus just beats the mark set by Harold Brodkey, sometimes mocked as the tardiest author ever, who signed a novel deal in 1958, but didn't deliver his monstrous, rambling full-length debut, The Runaway Soul, until 1991. Henry Roth published Call It Sleep in 1934, then only scattered writings until it was reissued and praised. At 73, he embarked on a vast four-novel sequence, of which the first volume appeared in 1994 – a 60-year pause that looks unbeatable.
The Dish 