James Salter’s “Last Night” was first published in the New Yorker magazine in November 2002; it was reprinted in 2005 as the final story in a collection of the same name. Salter has been widely recognized for his treatment of the physical and spiritual conditions of people living in a culture that is increasingly adrift of traditional standards of faith, personal integrity, and civil behavior. Within the condensed recounting of the presumed last night of one woman’s life, Salter manages to explore a number of volatile social issues, including the legalities and ethics of assisted suicide, the disintegration of a marriage under the pressures of an extramarital affair, and the general malaise of a certain kind of culture. Walter Such is a representative of masculinity and integrity for the new world of the late twentieth century, a man notable for his frayed moral fiber and for the double betrayal of the one woman he claims to have loved.