top of page

James Salter’s Acts of Revelation in “Last Night”:

One Obscure Clue at a Time

First written in 2007

 

Spoiler Alert: This is an analysis of Salter's strategies for creating suspense. The ending of the story is revealed, so please be advised of that and read the story first if so inclined.

 

            After reading James Salter’s title story in his collection Last Night, I began to wonder how the author pulled this story off.  When I read the story a second time, a light flickered, and a third reading led to some limited understanding.  Salter, on the first page of this story, reveals one obscure clue, though the reader does not see it as such on a first perusal.  With each succeeding page he adds another clue, always subtle, often ambiguous, sometimes misleading, something he does with a deft touch.  Perhaps this is a basic recipe for a story like “Last Night,” but in the hands of a less-gifted talent, the story could have easily failed.

            Clue #1: “[Walter] was sitting with Susanna, a family friend” (120).  Well, okay.  A family friend.  Not a problem; one can understand why Walter and his wife Marit might want a friend with them on this night.

            Clue #2: “Susanna was younger.  She had a wide face and high, pure forehead.  . . . Dirty girl, one of their friends had commented about her, with a degree of admiration” (121).  Hmmm.  At this point we know Walter has a syringe provided by a doctor and this is to be the last night of Marit’s life.  Susanna seems to be a bit of a strange choice for a companion on this final evening, but Marit has agreed upon her, we are told.  In addition, people are always gossiping about others.

            Clue #3: “Susanna, sitting in a short skirt, was already a little nervous.  It was hard to pretend it would be just an ordinary dinner.  It would be hard to be offhanded and herself” (121).  Of course.  Certainly.  If we imagine ourselves in a similar circumstance, we have to agree with Susanna’s concerns.  So, although we think we know why she feels this way, we don’t.  This is one of the ways Salter misleads us: with deft equivocations, the magician performing his sleight of hand.

            Clue #4: “Marit gazed at the things in the room . . .  She looked at it all . . .   Susanna’s long hair and freshness meant something, though she was not sure what” (122).  Perfectly logical.  Marit is going to die on this night; she is looking at things with a wish to understand their significance.  It’s not until later that we wonder: Is Marit experiencing some paranormal insight here?  Are her instincts trying to tell her something that she refuses to listen to?

            Clue #5: “It was hard for Walter to remember how [Marit] had once been.  She was almost a different woman from the one to whom he had made a solemn promise to help when the time came” (123).  Marit has fought this cancer for some long years and has changed significantly in the process.  Nothing startling here.  We feel closer to Walter, empathizing.

            Clue #6: “You know, it was very nice of you to join us tonight,” Marit said to Susanna.  “It’s quite a special evening” (124).  Given the situation, it certainly is nice of Susanna, and suddenly we begin to wonder again why this young woman agreed and why she was invited in the first place.  No serious suspicions yet, but some niggling doubts, and then we begin to wonder if our questions are due to our cynical perspective on life. 

            Clue #7: After ordering another bottle of $575 wine, Walter “poured the last of the second bottle into Susanna’s glass” (125).  Just a bit strange, we think.  Why not pour it into Marit’s glass?  But she’s ill; perhaps she didn’t want another glass.  That would make sense.

            Clue #8: After the fine dinner out, the threesome returns to Walter and Marit’s home.  Marit retires to her room, and Susanna tells Walter she has to go home.  Walter pleads, “No, don’t.  Please don’t go.   . . . I’m going to go upstairs in a little while, but when I come down I can’t be alone.  Please” (126).  This is troubling, but given what Walter is about to do with the syringe, perhaps he needs support.  But why from a beautiful twenty-nine-year old woman?  Where are Walter’s old friends?  Suddenly the explanation of why Susanna was chosen to join them on this last night feels hollow.

            Clue #9: “There it was, the small etched lines on the side.  There were ten ccs.  He tried to think of a way not to go on.  If he dropped the syringe, broke it somehow, and said his hand had been shaking. . .” (127).  Now we begin to feel guilty.  Here is a man who obviously loves his wife and who is almost desperate, it seems, not to perform this act he had promised to perform.  How could we have been so callous as to have doubted, to have entertained any suspicion at all?

            Clue #10: Walter cannot inject his wife the first time he enters her room, leaving in a rush to fortify himself with a drink (128).  It is logical for him to be terribly nervous, almost in a panic.  He is, in effect, going to murder his wife, though we of the liberal persuasion understand and empathize, at least, and perhaps wholeheartedly approve.  Marit is terminal and ready to die.  Isn’t this an act of compassion and love?

            Clue #11: When Walter returns, Marit declares her love, asking if he loves her, and speaks of the first time they met.  Walter responds with emotion, but with no declarations or memories of his own, and when she says she is ready he injects her.  Then: “He went slowly downstairs.  A sense of relief came over him, enormous relief and sadness.   . . . He stood for a few minutes and then saw, sitting in her car, motionless, Susanna” (129).  We think we understand Walter”s “relief and sadness,” but we wonder why Susanna is still there, especially after she said she was leaving.  There was no need for her to stay, yet there she is.

            Clue #12: “It’s over,” [Walter] said.  “Come in.  I’m going to get a drink” (130).  Very casual.  Very cavalier.  Is this the same Walter who seemed so desperate about this act?  When Susanna asks if Marit really wanted her to join them for the evening, Walter responds: “Darling, she suggested it.  She didn’t know a thing (130).  The “darling” gets our immediate attention, but the next sentence is the emotional coup de grace.  There’s only one thing this can mean, though many of us romantics might still be clinging to some hope.  Maybe, we think.  Maybe . . .

            But when Walter makes passionate love to Susanna that evening, any lingering doubt vanishes.  We so wanted this to be a love story, and we held out hope until the very end.  In some ways it’s of little consequence to us that Marit survives the bungled injection, for surely she, too, will figure it all out and be the worse for knowing.

            James Salter has said in “Last Night” what he says in all the stories in this collection: life is, in the words of a critique in The New York Times Book Review, “a volatile mess” (back cover), and though we fight to hang on to some of those redeeming experiences that we enjoy from time to time, in the end darkness will prevail over light, selfishness over altruism, egotism over love.  It’s a gloomy picture to be sure, but one with clarion pieces of truth embedded throughout.  Salter’s art shines through in this superbly crafted short story.

 

           

                                                       Works Cited

Salter, James.  “Last Night.”  Last Night.  New York: Vintage, 2006.

bottom of page