In
conversation, he’s courteous, flinty, guarded, and particular in a way that combines
shyness and care. He doesn’t like to be asked things directly. “It seems shameful to me,
to start analyzing oneself in public,” he said. His voice is thin, almost effeminate. He’s
funnier in person than in his prose, which is generally solemn, and he has a gentle
streak.If there are ants on the counter, he won’t kill them. He has an obsession with a
2003 documentary about the Thoroughbred Seabiscuit, which he watches over and
over, tearing up in the presence of guests. He has been known to sing “American Pie”
to clams when he shucks them. He always diligently checks the bill at restaurants.If
he’s telling a story that involves numbers or years, he whispers the math to himself, his eyes fluttering, a finger tugging at his ear. He is a reciter of poems, and keen to read
aloud. He likes to visit cemeteries. He measures out his Martinis precisely, down to a
ritual drop of Worcestershire. He’s intensely competitive. He used to take pleasure in
occasionally beating the poet Kenneth Koch, a superior player, in tennis, and he kept
meticulous records of the touch-football games he and his literary friends played for
many years on Long Island. “I could still show them my heels well into my fifties,” he
said. He is renowned among them for his poise and self-control. He cherishes a way of
life that may be passing from the world. For New Year’s Eve dinner at home in Aspen
some years ago, Salter had everyone wear black tie.
by Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker, 2015
