Raymond Carver
Encyclopedia
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story
writer and poet
. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s.
, a mill town on the Columbia River
, and grew up in Yakima, Washington
. His father, a skilled sawmill worker from Arkansas
, was a fisherman and a heavy drinker. Carver's mother worked on and off as a waitress and a retail clerk. His one brother, James Franklin Carver, was born in 1943.
Carver was educated at local schools in Yakima, Washington. In his spare time he read mostly novels by Mickey Spillane
or publications such as Sports Afield and Outdoor Life and hunted and fished with friends and family. After graduating from Yakima High School in 1956, Carver worked with his father at a sawmill in California. In June 1957, aged 19, he married 16-year-old Maryann Burk, who had just graduated from a private Episcopal school for girls. Their daughter, Christine La Rae, was born in December 1957. When their second child, a boy named Vance Lindsay, was born the next year, Carver was 20. Carver supported his family by working as a janitor, sawmill laborer, delivery man, and library assistant. During their marriage, Maryann worked as a waitress, salesperson, administrative assistant, and high school English teacher.
. Carver attended a creative-writing course taught by the novelist John Gardner, who became a mentor and had a major influence on Carver's life and career. Carver continued his studies first at Chico State University and then at Humboldt State College
in Arcata, California, where he studied with Richard Cortez Day and received his B.A. in 1963. During this period he was first published and served as editor for Toyon, the university literary magazine, in which he included several of his own pieces under pseudonyms. He later attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop
, at the University of Iowa
, for one year. Maryann graduated from San Jose State College in 1970 and taught English at Los Altos High School until 1977.
His first published story appeared in 1960, titled "The Furious Seasons." More florid than his later work, the story strongly bore the influence of William Faulkner
. "Furious Seasons" was later used as a title for a collection of stories published by Capra Press, and can now be found in recent collections No Heroics, Please and Call If You Need Me.
His first collection, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
, was first published in 1967; the title story had appeared in the Best American Short Stories 1967 collection. The collection itself was shortlisted for the National Book Award, though it sold fewer than 5,000 copies that year.
In the mid-1960s Carver and his family lived in Sacramento
, where he worked as a night custodian at Mercy Hospital. He would do all of the janitorial work in the first hour and then write at the hospital through the rest of the night. He sat in on classes at what was then Sacramento State College
, including workshops with poet Dennis Schmitz
. Carver and Schmitz soon became friends, and Carver's first book of poems, Near Klamath, was later written and published under Schmitz's guidance.
With his appearance in the respected "Foley collection," the impending publication of Near Klamath by the English Club of Sacramento State College, and the death of his father, 1967 was a landmark year for Carver. That was also the year that he moved his family to Palo Alto, California
, so that he could take a job as a textbook editor for Science Research Associates. He worked there until he was fired in 1970 for his inappropriate writing style. In the 1970s and 1980s as his writing career began to take off, Carver taught for several years at universities throughout the United States.
During his years of working different jobs, rearing children, and trying to write, Carver started to drink heavily. By his own admission, eventually he more or less gave up writing and took to full-time drinking. In the fall semester of 1973, Carver was a teacher in the Iowa Writers' Workshop
with John Cheever
, but Carver stated that they did less teaching than drinking and almost no writing. The next year, after leaving Iowa City, Cheever went to a treatment center to attempt to overcome his alcoholism
, but Carver continued drinking for three years. After being hospitalized three times (between June 1976 and February or March 1977), Carver began his 'second life' and stopped drinking on June 2, 1977, with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous
. Carver believed he would have died of alcoholism at the age of 40 if he hadn't found a way to stop drinking. When he knew the cancer would kill him, he wrote a poem about that bonus of 10 years, called "Gravy."
Carver was nominated again in 1984 for his third major-press collection, Cathedral, the volume generally perceived as his best. Included in the collection are the award-winning stories "A Small, Good Thing", and "Where I'm Calling From." John Updike
selected the latter for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of the Century. For his part, Carver saw Cathedral as a watershed in his career, in its shift towards a more optimistic and confidently poetic style.
at a writers' conference in Dallas, Texas
in November, 1977. Beginning in January, 1979, Carver and Gallagher lived together in El Paso
, Texas, in a borrowed cabin near Port Angeles, in western Washington state, and in Tucson, Arizona
. In 1980, the two moved to Syracuse
, where Gallagher had been appointed the coordinator of the creative writing program at Syracuse University
; Carver taught as a professor in the English department. He and Gallagher jointly purchased a house in Syracuse, at 832 Maryland Avenue. In ensuing years, the house became so popular that the couple had to hang a sign outside that read "Writers At Work" in order to be left alone. In 1982, Carver and first wife, Maryann, were divorced. He married Gallagher in 1988 in Reno
, Nevada
. Six weeks later, on August 2, 1988, Carver died in Port Angeles, Washington
, from lung cancer
at the age of 50. In the same year, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Carver is buried at Ocean View Cemetery in Port Angeles. The inscription on his tombstone reads:
LATE FRAGMENT
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
His poem Gravy is also inscribed.
As Carver's will directed, Tess Gallagher assumed the management of his literary estate.
(In Carver's birth town of Clatskanie, Oregon a memorial park and statue was constructed in the late 2000s spearheaded by the local Friends of the Library, using mostly local donations. Tess Gallagher was present at the dedication. It is located in the old town on the corner of Lillich and Nehalem Streets, across from the library. A block away, the building where Raymond Carver was born still stands. There is a plaque of Carver in the foyer).
published Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale, a roman à clef
of his friendship with Carver in the 1970s. In 2006 Maryann Burk Carver wrote a memoir of her years with Carver: What It Used To Be Like: A Portrait of My Marriage to Raymond Carver. An unauthorized biography, Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life by Carol Sklenicka
, published by Scribner in 2009, was named one of the Best Ten Books of that year by The New York Times Book Review. Carver's widow refused to cooperate with Sklenica.
His final (incomplete) collection of seven stories, titled Elephant in Britain (included in "Where I'm Calling From") was composed in the five years before his death. The nature of these stories, especially "Errand", have led to some speculation that Carver was preparing to write a novel. Only one piece of this work has survived - the unpromising fragment "The Augustine Notebooks," printed in No Heroics, Please.
Tess Gallagher published five Carver stories posthumously in Call If You Need Me; one of the stories ("Kindling") won an O. Henry Award
in 1999. In his lifetime Carver won five O. Henry Awards; these winning stories were "Are These Actual Miles" (originally titled "What is it?") (1972), "Put Yourself in My Shoes" (1974), "Are You A Doctor?" (1975), "A Small, Good Thing" (1983), and "Errand" (1988).
Tess Gallagher fought with Knopf for permission to republish the stories in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
as they were originally written by Carver, as opposed to the heavily-edited (or "heavy edits") and altered versions that appeared in 1981 under the editorship of Gordon Lish. The book, entitled 'Beginners', was released in hardback on October 1, 2009 in Great Britain. 'Beginners' also appears in a new Library of America edition collecting all of Carver's short fiction.
, a collection published in 1988 and a recipient of an honorable mention in the 2006 New York Times article citing the best works of fiction of the previous 25 years). Another stated reason for his brevity was "that the story [or poem] can be written and read in one sitting." This was not simply a preference but, particularly at the beginning of his career, a practical consideration as he juggled writing with work. His subject matter was often focused on blue-collar experience, and was clearly reflective of his own life.
Minimalism
is generally seen as one of the hallmarks of Carver's work. His editor at Esquire magazine, Gordon Lish
, was instrumental in shaping Carver's prose in this direction - where his earlier tutor John Gardner had advised Carver to use fifteen words instead of twenty-five, Gordon Lish
instructed Carver to use five in place of fifteen. Objecting to the "surgical amputation and transplantation" of Lish's heavy editing, Carver eventually broke with him. During this time, Carver also submitted poetry to James Dickey
, then poetry editor of Esquire. His style has also been described as Dirty realism
, which connected him with a group of writers in the 1970s and 1980s that included Richard Ford
, Tobias Wolff
-- two writers Carver was closely acquainted with—as well as Ann Beattie
and Jayne Anne Phillips. With the exception of Beattie, who wrote about upper-middle class people, these were writers who focused on sadness and loss in the everyday lives of ordinary people—often lower-middle class or isolated and marginalized people—who represent Henry David Thoreau
's idea of living lives of "quiet desperation."
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
writer and poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s.
Early life
Carver was born in Clatskanie, OregonClatskanie, Oregon
Clatskanie is a city in Columbia County, Oregon, United States. It was named for the Clatskanie River, which empties into the Columbia River within the city limits. The population was 1,528 at the 2000 census. The 2007 estimate is 1,710 residents.-History:...
, a mill town on the Columbia River
Columbia River
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
, and grew up in Yakima, Washington
Yakima, Washington
Yakima is an American city southeast of Mount Rainier National Park and the county seat of Yakima County, Washington, United States, and the eighth largest city by population in the state itself. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 91,196 and a metropolitan population of...
. His father, a skilled sawmill worker from Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, was a fisherman and a heavy drinker. Carver's mother worked on and off as a waitress and a retail clerk. His one brother, James Franklin Carver, was born in 1943.
Carver was educated at local schools in Yakima, Washington. In his spare time he read mostly novels by Mickey Spillane
Mickey Spillane
Frank Morrison Spillane , better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American author of crime novels, many featuring his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally...
or publications such as Sports Afield and Outdoor Life and hunted and fished with friends and family. After graduating from Yakima High School in 1956, Carver worked with his father at a sawmill in California. In June 1957, aged 19, he married 16-year-old Maryann Burk, who had just graduated from a private Episcopal school for girls. Their daughter, Christine La Rae, was born in December 1957. When their second child, a boy named Vance Lindsay, was born the next year, Carver was 20. Carver supported his family by working as a janitor, sawmill laborer, delivery man, and library assistant. During their marriage, Maryann worked as a waitress, salesperson, administrative assistant, and high school English teacher.
Writing career
Carver became interested in writing in California, where he had moved with his family because his mother-in-law had a home in ParadiseParadise, California
Paradise is an incorporated town in Butte County, in the northwest foothills of California's Central Valley, in the Sierra. The town is considered part of the Chico Metropolitan Area. The population was 26,218 at the 2010 census, down from 26,408 at the 2000 census...
. Carver attended a creative-writing course taught by the novelist John Gardner, who became a mentor and had a major influence on Carver's life and career. Carver continued his studies first at Chico State University and then at Humboldt State College
Humboldt State University
Humboldt State University is the northernmost campus of the California State University system, located in Arcata within Humboldt County, California, USA. The main campus, nestled at the edge of a coast redwood forest, is situated on Preston hill overlooking Arcata and with commanding views of...
in Arcata, California, where he studied with Richard Cortez Day and received his B.A. in 1963. During this period he was first published and served as editor for Toyon, the university literary magazine, in which he included several of his own pieces under pseudonyms. He later attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop
Iowa Writers' Workshop
The Program in Creative Writing, more commonly known as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, is a highly regarded graduate-level creative writing program in the United States...
, at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
, for one year. Maryann graduated from San Jose State College in 1970 and taught English at Los Altos High School until 1977.
His first published story appeared in 1960, titled "The Furious Seasons." More florid than his later work, the story strongly bore the influence of William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
. "Furious Seasons" was later used as a title for a collection of stories published by Capra Press, and can now be found in recent collections No Heroics, Please and Call If You Need Me.
His first collection, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, published in 1976, was the first short-story collection by American writer Raymond Carver. This minimalist collection revolves around themes of segregation and disenchantment in American families. -“Neighbors”:...
, was first published in 1967; the title story had appeared in the Best American Short Stories 1967 collection. The collection itself was shortlisted for the National Book Award, though it sold fewer than 5,000 copies that year.
In the mid-1960s Carver and his family lived in Sacramento
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
, where he worked as a night custodian at Mercy Hospital. He would do all of the janitorial work in the first hour and then write at the hospital through the rest of the night. He sat in on classes at what was then Sacramento State College
California State University, Sacramento
California State University, Sacramento, popularly known as Sacramento State, is a public university located in the city of Sacramento, California. It is part of the California State University system...
, including workshops with poet Dennis Schmitz
Dennis Schmitz
-Life:He grew up in Dubuque, Iowa. He graduated from Loras College and the University of Chicago. He married Loretta D'Agostino in 1960. He taught at Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and California State University, Sacramento.His students include Raymond...
. Carver and Schmitz soon became friends, and Carver's first book of poems, Near Klamath, was later written and published under Schmitz's guidance.
With his appearance in the respected "Foley collection," the impending publication of Near Klamath by the English Club of Sacramento State College, and the death of his father, 1967 was a landmark year for Carver. That was also the year that he moved his family to Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
, so that he could take a job as a textbook editor for Science Research Associates. He worked there until he was fired in 1970 for his inappropriate writing style. In the 1970s and 1980s as his writing career began to take off, Carver taught for several years at universities throughout the United States.
During his years of working different jobs, rearing children, and trying to write, Carver started to drink heavily. By his own admission, eventually he more or less gave up writing and took to full-time drinking. In the fall semester of 1973, Carver was a teacher in the Iowa Writers' Workshop
Iowa Writers' Workshop
The Program in Creative Writing, more commonly known as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, is a highly regarded graduate-level creative writing program in the United States...
with John Cheever
John Cheever
John William Cheever was an American novelist and short story writer. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs." His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the Westchester suburbs, old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy,...
, but Carver stated that they did less teaching than drinking and almost no writing. The next year, after leaving Iowa City, Cheever went to a treatment center to attempt to overcome his alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, but Carver continued drinking for three years. After being hospitalized three times (between June 1976 and February or March 1977), Carver began his 'second life' and stopped drinking on June 2, 1977, with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous is an international mutual aid movement which says its "primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety." Now claiming more than 2 million members, AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio...
. Carver believed he would have died of alcoholism at the age of 40 if he hadn't found a way to stop drinking. When he knew the cancer would kill him, he wrote a poem about that bonus of 10 years, called "Gravy."
Carver was nominated again in 1984 for his third major-press collection, Cathedral, the volume generally perceived as his best. Included in the collection are the award-winning stories "A Small, Good Thing", and "Where I'm Calling From." John Updike
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
selected the latter for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of the Century. For his part, Carver saw Cathedral as a watershed in his career, in its shift towards a more optimistic and confidently poetic style.
Personal life and death
Carver met the poet Tess GallagherTess Gallagher
Tess Gallagher is an American poet, essayist, author and playwright. She attended the University of Washington, where she studied creative writing with Theodore Roethke and later Nelson Bentley as well as David Wagoner and Mark Strand...
at a writers' conference in Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
in November, 1977. Beginning in January, 1979, Carver and Gallagher lived together in El Paso
El Paso
El Paso, a city in the U.S. state of Texas, on the border with Mexico.El Paso may also refer to:-Geography:Colombia:* El Paso, CesarSpain:*El Paso, Santa Cruz de TenerifeUnited States:...
, Texas, in a borrowed cabin near Port Angeles, in western Washington state, and in Tucson, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
. In 1980, the two moved to Syracuse
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
, where Gallagher had been appointed the coordinator of the creative writing program at Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
; Carver taught as a professor in the English department. He and Gallagher jointly purchased a house in Syracuse, at 832 Maryland Avenue. In ensuing years, the house became so popular that the couple had to hang a sign outside that read "Writers At Work" in order to be left alone. In 1982, Carver and first wife, Maryann, were divorced. He married Gallagher in 1988 in Reno
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
, Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
. Six weeks later, on August 2, 1988, Carver died in Port Angeles, Washington
Port Angeles, Washington
Port Angeles is a city in and the county seat of Clallam County, Washington, United States. The population was 19,038 at the 2010 census. The area's harbor was dubbed Puerto de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles by Spanish explorer Francisco de Eliza in 1791, but by the mid-19th century the name had...
, from lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
at the age of 50. In the same year, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Carver is buried at Ocean View Cemetery in Port Angeles. The inscription on his tombstone reads:
LATE FRAGMENT
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
His poem Gravy is also inscribed.
As Carver's will directed, Tess Gallagher assumed the management of his literary estate.
(In Carver's birth town of Clatskanie, Oregon a memorial park and statue was constructed in the late 2000s spearheaded by the local Friends of the Library, using mostly local donations. Tess Gallagher was present at the dedication. It is located in the old town on the corner of Lillich and Nehalem Streets, across from the library. A block away, the building where Raymond Carver was born still stands. There is a plaque of Carver in the foyer).
Legacy and posthumous publications
In 2001 the novelist Chuck KinderChuck Kinder
Charles Alfonso Kinder, II is an American novelist.Chuck Kinder was born October 8 in Montgomery, West Virginia to Charles Alfonso and Eileen Reba Kinder. He was educated at West Virginia University and Stanford University...
published Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale, a roman à clef
Roman à clef
Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...
of his friendship with Carver in the 1970s. In 2006 Maryann Burk Carver wrote a memoir of her years with Carver: What It Used To Be Like: A Portrait of My Marriage to Raymond Carver. An unauthorized biography, Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life by Carol Sklenicka
Carol Sklenicka
Carol Sklenicka is an American biographer and essayist best known as the author of Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life, the first comprehensive biography of short story writer Carver to be published after his death....
, published by Scribner in 2009, was named one of the Best Ten Books of that year by The New York Times Book Review. Carver's widow refused to cooperate with Sklenica.
His final (incomplete) collection of seven stories, titled Elephant in Britain (included in "Where I'm Calling From") was composed in the five years before his death. The nature of these stories, especially "Errand", have led to some speculation that Carver was preparing to write a novel. Only one piece of this work has survived - the unpromising fragment "The Augustine Notebooks," printed in No Heroics, Please.
Tess Gallagher published five Carver stories posthumously in Call If You Need Me; one of the stories ("Kindling") won an O. Henry Award
O. Henry Award
The O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American master of the form, O. Henry....
in 1999. In his lifetime Carver won five O. Henry Awards; these winning stories were "Are These Actual Miles" (originally titled "What is it?") (1972), "Put Yourself in My Shoes" (1974), "Are You A Doctor?" (1975), "A Small, Good Thing" (1983), and "Errand" (1988).
Tess Gallagher fought with Knopf for permission to republish the stories in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is the name of a 1981 collection of short stories by American writer Raymond Carver, as well as the title of one of the stories in the collection.-Why Don't You Dance?:...
as they were originally written by Carver, as opposed to the heavily-edited (or "heavy edits") and altered versions that appeared in 1981 under the editorship of Gordon Lish. The book, entitled 'Beginners', was released in hardback on October 1, 2009 in Great Britain. 'Beginners' also appears in a new Library of America edition collecting all of Carver's short fiction.
Literary Characteristics
Carver's career was dedicated to short stories and poetry. He described himself as "inclined toward brevity and intensity" and "hooked on writing short stories" (in the foreword of Where I'm Calling FromWhere I'm Calling From
"Where I'm Calling From" is a short story by American author Raymond Carver. The story focuses on the effects of alcohol. Throughout this story Carver experiments with the use of quotation and meditates on the healing factors of storytelling...
, a collection published in 1988 and a recipient of an honorable mention in the 2006 New York Times article citing the best works of fiction of the previous 25 years). Another stated reason for his brevity was "that the story [or poem] can be written and read in one sitting." This was not simply a preference but, particularly at the beginning of his career, a practical consideration as he juggled writing with work. His subject matter was often focused on blue-collar experience, and was clearly reflective of his own life.
Minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
is generally seen as one of the hallmarks of Carver's work. His editor at Esquire magazine, Gordon Lish
Gordon Lish
Gordon Jay Lish is an American writer. As a literary editor, he championed many American authors, particularly Raymond Carver, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel, and Richard Ford.-Early life and family:...
, was instrumental in shaping Carver's prose in this direction - where his earlier tutor John Gardner had advised Carver to use fifteen words instead of twenty-five, Gordon Lish
Gordon Lish
Gordon Jay Lish is an American writer. As a literary editor, he championed many American authors, particularly Raymond Carver, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel, and Richard Ford.-Early life and family:...
instructed Carver to use five in place of fifteen. Objecting to the "surgical amputation and transplantation" of Lish's heavy editing, Carver eventually broke with him. During this time, Carver also submitted poetry to James Dickey
James Dickey
James Lafayette Dickey was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966.-Early years:...
, then poetry editor of Esquire. His style has also been described as Dirty realism
Dirty realism
Dirty Realism is a North American literary movement born in the 1970s-80s in which the narrative is stripped down to its fundamental features.This movement is a derivative of minimalism. As minimalism, dirty realism is characterized by an economy with words and a focus on surface description...
, which connected him with a group of writers in the 1970s and 1980s that included Richard Ford
Richard Ford
Richard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day and The Lay of the Land, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories.-Early...
, Tobias Wolff
Tobias Wolff
Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff is an American author. He is known for his memoirs, particularly This Boy's Life , and his short stories. He has also written two novels.-Biography:Wolff was born in 1945 in Birmingham, Alabama...
-- two writers Carver was closely acquainted with—as well as Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie is an American short story writer and novelist. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a PEN/Bernard Malamud Award for excellence in the short story form. Her work has been compared to that of Alice Adams, J.D. Salinger,...
and Jayne Anne Phillips. With the exception of Beattie, who wrote about upper-middle class people, these were writers who focused on sadness and loss in the everyday lives of ordinary people—often lower-middle class or isolated and marginalized people—who represent Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
's idea of living lives of "quiet desperation."
Collections
- Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, published in 1976, was the first short-story collection by American writer Raymond Carver. This minimalist collection revolves around themes of segregation and disenchantment in American families. -“Neighbors”:...
(first published 1976) - Furious Seasons (1977)
- What We Talk About When We Talk About LoveWhat We Talk About When We Talk About LoveWhat We Talk About When We Talk About Love is the name of a 1981 collection of short stories by American writer Raymond Carver, as well as the title of one of the stories in the collection.-Why Don't You Dance?:...
(1981) - CathedralCathedral (stories)Cathedral is a collection of short stories by American writer Raymond Carver published in 1984.-The stories:The collection contains the following stories:*"Feathers"*"Chef's House"*"Preservation"*"The Compartment"*"A Small, Good Thing"*"Vitamins"...
(1983) - ElephantElephant (stories)Elephant is a collection of short stories by American writer Raymond Carver published in 1988.-Boxes:The narrator and Jill find each other after failed marriages. Soon after they set up a household, their comfortable life is disrupted by the arrival of the narrator's seventy year-old mother...
(1988)
Compilations
- Where I'm Calling From (1988)
- Short Cuts: Selected Stories (1993) - published to accompany Robert Altman film Short CutsShort CutsShort Cuts is a 1993 American drama film directed by Robert Altman. Filmed from a screenplay by Robert Altman and Frank Barhydt, it is inspired by nine short stories and a poem by Raymond Carver...
- Collected Stories (2009) - complete short fiction including BeginnersBeginners (Raymond Carver)Beginners is the title given to the manuscript version of Raymond Carver's 1981 short story collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, published by Carver's widow Tess Gallagher in 2009.-The Stories:* Why Don't You Dance?* Viewfinder...
Collections
- Near Klamath (1968)
- Winter Insomnia (1970)
- At Night The Salmon Move (1976)
- Fires (1983)
- Where Water Comes Together With Other Water (1985)
- Ultramarine (1986)
- A New Path To The Waterfall (1989)
Compilations
- In a Marine Light: Selected Poems (1988)
- All of Us: The Collected Poems (1996)
Films and theatre adaptations
- Short CutsShort CutsShort Cuts is a 1993 American drama film directed by Robert Altman. Filmed from a screenplay by Robert Altman and Frank Barhydt, it is inspired by nine short stories and a poem by Raymond Carver...
directed by Robert AltmanRobert AltmanRobert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and... - Everything GoesEverything GoesEverything Goes, released in 2004, is an award-winning short film directed by Andrew Kotatko. It is based on the short story Why Don't You Dance? from Raymond Carver's collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. The film stars Hugo Weaving, Abbie Cornish and Sullivan Stapleton...
directed by Andrew Kotatko and starring Hugo WeavingHugo WeavingHugo Wallace Weaving is a Nigerian born, English-Australian film actor and voice artist. He is best known for his roles as Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy, Elrond in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, "V" in V for Vendetta, and performances in numerous Australian character dramas.-Early...
and Abbie CornishAbbie CornishAbbie Cornish is an Australian actress. She is well known in Australia for a number of film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's Somersault, and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star and her appearance as Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch.-... - JindabyneJindabyne (film)Jindabyne is a 2006 Australian drama film by director Ray Lawrence and starring an ensemble cast including Gabriel Byrne, Laura Linney, Deborra-Lee Furness and John Howard. Jindabyne was filmed entirely on location in and around the town of the same name: Jindabyne, New South Wales, situated next...
(based on So Much Water So Close to Home) directed by Ray Lawrence - Everything Must GoEverything Must Go (film)Everything Must Go is a 2011 American comedy-drama film directed by Dan Rush and starring Will Ferrell. The film was based on Raymond Carver's short story Why Don't You Dance? and was released in theaters on May 13, 2011.-Plot:...
directed by Dan Rush and starring Will FerrellWill FerrellJohn William "Will" Ferrell is an American comedian, impressionist, actor, and writer. Ferrell first established himself in the late 1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, and has subsequently starred in the comedy films Old School, Elf, Anchorman, Talladega...
based on Carver's short story "Why Don't You Dance?" - What's in Alaska? directed by Jim FieldsJim FieldsJames Wallace Fields is an American film director, producer, playwright and actor. Fields wrote, produced and directed the movies 416, Saving The Indian Hills, Preserve Me A Seat, Plain Living and, most recently Bugeaters, currently in production...
- CarverCarver-People:*Bob Carver, American physicist and audio equipment designer*Caroline Carver , thriller writer, award winner and adventurer*Dante Carver , American actor*George Washington Carver , American botanist and inventor...
a production directed by William Gaskill at London's Arcola Theatre in 1995, adapted from five Carver short stories including What's in Alaska, Put Yourself in My Shoes and Intimacy - Studentova žena (Croatian) directed by Goran Kovač based on "The Student's Wife"
- After the Denim directed by Gregory D. Goyins
Music
- The 1989 album So Much Water So Close to HomeSo Much Water So Close to HomeSo Much Water, So Close to Home is an album by Australian rock band Paul Kelly and the Messengers and was originally released in August 1989. The title comes from a short story of the same name by author Raymond Carver. Carver had died in August 1988, Kelly would go on to co-write the score for the...
by Australian singer-songwriter Paul KellyPaul Kelly (musician)Paul Maurice Kelly is an Australian rock music singer-songwriter, guitarist, and harmonica player. He has performed solo, and has led numerous groups, including the Dots, the Coloured Girls, and the Messengers. He has worked with other artists and groups, including associated projects Professor...
, includes a track "Everything's Turning to White" which is a re-telling of Carver's story So Much Water So Close to Home. - The 2004 EP by OwenOwen (band)Owen is a solo project of Mike Kinsella, and part of the Chicago indie scene.Kinsella is one of the dominant and influential figures in the Chicago indie scene, having also led the band American Football, and played in the bands Cap'n Jazz, Joan of Arc and Owls .Owen is known for its soft melodies,...
includes a song titled Gazebo, named after Carver's short story. The song mentions Carver's name, and also quotes the final line of Gazebo; "In this too, she was right." - The 2005 album Pocket RevolutionPocket RevolutionPocket Revolution is the fourth album by Deus, released in 2005. The cover art is based on The Von Neumann-Machine, a story from Don Lawrence's Storm series of graphic novels....
by dEUS includes a song titled "What We Talk About (When We Talk About Love)". - The 2011 album Summer of Lust by Library VoicesLibrary VoicesLibrary Voices are a Canadian indie pop band from Regina, Saskatchewan. Formed in 2008 as a ten-piece group of musician friends, they have released two EPs and two full-length albums...
includes a song titled "If Raymond Carver Were Born in the 90's".
Books and articles about Carver
- The novel Name Your Poison: A Max Mitchum Mystery, by Lucas Stensland, was a comical attempt by the author to combine the styles of "the two Raymonds": Carver and Chandler. The book was intended to be a tribute.
- Ródenas, Gabri (2009), “Jarmusch y Carver: Se ha roto el frigorífico” in Fernández, P. (Ed.), Rompiendo moldes: Discursos, género e hibridación en el siglo XXI. Zamora/Sevilla: Editorial Comunicación Social. ISBN 978-84-96082-88-5. Available at Google Books.
External links
A review of Maryann Burk Carver's What It Used To Be Like; A Portrait of My Marriage to Raymond Carver A review of Raymond Carver A Writer's Life by Carol Sklenicka and Raymond Carver Collected Stories edited by William L. Stull and Maureen P. Carroll A review of Raymond Carver A Writer's Life by Carol Sklenicka and Raymond Carver Collected Stories edited by William L. Stull and Maureen P. Carroll Historian Carol Polsgrove interviews Carver biographer Carol Sklenicka- Rights Battle Brews over Un-Edited Carver Stories, All Things Considered, January 7, 2008
- Carversite Features story, video, photographs, poems, quotations, bibliography, more
- An indepth interview from 1985 in which Carver talks about his father, his early writing, his characters, and the 'dark humour' in some of his stories.
- The Raymond Carver Page
- The International Raymond Carver Society
- The Raymond Carver Review
- Map of Port Angeles marked with Carver's 'haunts' such as the Odyssey Bookshop
- Tell it All this review site for the posthumously published Tell it All, provides numerous links to Carver sites on the web and links to his work
- Manga and Minimalism: The Shared Visions of Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Raymond Carver
- Blog post at Beyond the Margins about Dell Smith's experiences adapting Carver's story Why Don't You Dance into a student film in mid-'80s.