Contemporary Novel

The contemporary American novel that I read was Light Years by James Salter.

Salter was born on June 10, 1925 and grew up in New York City. He resigned from the Air Force after twelve years when his first novel came out in 1957, and has since earned his living as a writer.

Light Years is a novel about a married couple, Viri and Nedra, who live in New York State. The whole story revolves around their life with their children, work, home, friends, and dinners and get-togethers with their fellow neighbors, co-workers and friends. This is seemingly what every American couple looks like to outsiders; but Salter shows between the cracks of their lives and what can really happen in a seemingly normal life.

The book starts off by showing you what you believe to be a normal American family. Soon after, you realize that things are not all right; Viri is having an affair with a fellow female co-worker. Things are kept hush-hush and it seems to be the only problem the audience is going to see. Then, you catch a glimpse into Nedra’s thoughts, and you see that the same thing is happening with her, only her with a family friend.

The novel touches on these harsh subjects in a slow building way that shows flaw after flaw until you get the real picture. Salter first lets the audience see this married couple and their life; but only hits the very surface of what there is to know. Then, he lets crack after crack slip through this perfect picture until all you see are flaws, and you can never go back to seeing the original picture.

One realization that Viri comes to one morning shows that he does in fact see the perfect life he could irrevocably have:

There is no happiness like this happiness: quiet mornings, light from the
river, the weekend ahead. They lived a Russian life, a rich life,
interwoven, in which the misfortune of one, a failure, illness, would stagger
them all. It was like a garment, this life. Its beauty was outside,
its warmth within.

I believe that this touches upon the aspect of “what is the American dream”? These people have what most would consider the ‘American dream’; a perfect family, healthy children, loving friends and family. But Salter dares to show the juxtaposition between this American dream of a life, and what is quite possibly a better reality of a typical Americans life.