All that is

"Sentence for sentence, Salter is the master". (Richard Ford). From his experiences as a naval officer in battles off Okinawa during World War II, Philip Bowman returns to America and finds a position as a book editor. He soon inhabits a world where marriages fail as affairs ignite, alcohol reigns, writers struggle, and publishers hustle. It is a world in which to immerse himself, a world of intimate connections and surprising triumphs. But the deal that Philip cannot seem to close is love: one marriage goes bad; another fails to happen; and, finally, he meets a woman who enthrals, then betrays him, setting him on a course he could never have imagined for himself. Written with Salter´s signature economy of prose, "All That Is" fiercely, fluidly explores a life unfolding in a world on the brink of change: a dazzling, sometimes devastating labyrinth of love and ambition, of the small shocks and grand pleasures of being alive. "All That Is" is a sweeping, seductive love story set in post-World War II America that tells of one man´s great passions and regrets over the course of his lifetime and draws together the great themes of Salter´s writing: warfare, love, sex and marriage, and what it means to write.