James Salter revisits his second novel, The Arm of Flesh, making extensive changes and rewriting many portions entirely. The resulting work combines the untamed vision of a young military pilot with the clarity and power of a masterful writer

One of America's greatest prose stylists, James Salter is often praised by literary readers for the clear, shimmering surface of his writing. His first two novels, The Hunters and The Arm of Flesh, are also known in military circles, where his descriptions of flying and combat are legendary. A former Air Force pilot who flew F-86 fighters in Korea, Salter writes with matchless insight about the terror and exhilaration that accompany a pilot in wartime.

The lives of officers in an Air Force squadron in occupied Europe-Captains Isbell and Wickenden, Lieutenants Sisse, Godchaux, Grace, and others-encompass the contradictions of military experience and in particular the response to a young newcomer, bright and ambitious, whose fate is to be an emblem of their own. In Cassada, Salter captures a strange comradeship of loneliness, trust, and alienation among military men ready to sacrifice all in the name of duty and pride.