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Raymond Carver They Re Not Your Husband Pdf Creator. 5/19/2017 0 Comments. They're greeted with chipper neighbors, frosty outcasts, a cynical bodyguard, and a very. Carver’s THEY’RE NOT YOUR HUSBAND Language is especially significant in Raymond Carver’s short story, “They’re Not Your Husband.” In a delightful and clever way Carver exposes the main character, Earl Ober. One evening Earl Ober, an out-of-work salesman, visits his wife, Doreen, in the restaurant where she works. “That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.” ― Raymond Carver Back in the 1980s when this collection of essays, poems and stories was first published as part of the Vintage Contemporaries series, I read again and again. Start studying How to Read Literature Like a Professor Ch 1-13. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Raymond Carver's. Although many writers of the 1970s experimented with non-narrative and self-reflexive techniques, others turned to develop realist portraits of everyday life through a minimalist aesthetic. The chief practitioner of this aesthetic was Raymond Carver. His story, 'They're Not Your Husband,' appeared.
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More than sixty stories, poems, and essays are included in this wide-ranging collection by the extravagantly versatile Raymond Carver. Two of the stories—later revised for What We Talk About When We Talk About Love--are particularly notable in that between the first and the final versions, we see clearly the astounding process of Carver’s literary development.
Published June 18th 1989 by Vintage (first published 1977)
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“That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.”
― Raymond Carver
Back in the 1980s when this collection of essays, poems and stories was first published as part of the Vintage Contemporaries series, I read again and again. And after reading yet again this past week, I must say Carver's words get even better with age.
This book collects seven stories told with such care and tenderness, it is as if Raymond Carver lets us hold the warm, beating heart of each of his ch..more
Shelves: california-dreaming, wax-poetic, everybody-loves-raymond
Once, when my son was about fifteen, he turned to me at a piano competition and said, “Mom, there are just so many people.”
I remember looking up from a book, looking around the room at a sea of sweaty competitors and then bringing in my gaze to stare at the terror in my son's face. Privately, I shared his terror. Who could do this? Who could memorize and then perform these required pieces in front of judges and peers? I find this aspect of my son's life bewildering, but I'm his mother and my job..more
Mar 19, 2019Tatevik Najaryan rated it it was amazing · review of another editionI remember looking up from a book, looking around the room at a sea of sweaty competitors and then bringing in my gaze to stare at the terror in my son's face. Privately, I shared his terror. Who could do this? Who could memorize and then perform these required pieces in front of judges and peers? I find this aspect of my son's life bewildering, but I'm his mother and my job..more
Shelves: read-in-2019, authors-carver, genre-poetry, genre-writing, genre-nonfiction
Essays ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Poems ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Stories ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Can you imagine me rating poems four stars? This man is good, really good. I mean it! I think it's because his poems are like short stories. And I'm not even discussing the essays and stories.
I love Carver's writing. It's so sincere and real. It's life. Life happens.
Jun 08, 2015Joanna Marie rated it really liked itPoems ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Stories ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Can you imagine me rating poems four stars? This man is good, really good. I mean it! I think it's because his poems are like short stories. And I'm not even discussing the essays and stories.
I love Carver's writing. It's so sincere and real. It's life. Life happens.
Shelves: own-physical-copies, short-stories, poetry, 2015, essays
Raymond Carver is that straight-to-the-point author who does not use too many flowery words to impress any reader. He keeps it short yet still exquisite, creative (sexy even). I think his application of real-life situations involving family and marriage issues could be relatable to both young adult and adult readers because of his easy writing style. But don't be fooled, because he also got me thinking to every short story ending. :)
A few poems fell flat but overall, essays and short stories in..more
A few poems fell flat but overall, essays and short stories in..more
In many ways, this selection of Raymond Carver’s essays, poems and stories is the perfect introduction to this iconic literary figure. Unlike other collections, where readers are only given his finely crafted fiction or poetry to decipher, here we are first presented with four essays in which Carver speaks about his development as a writer and the factors the drove him to create.
Next, we are given a sample of Carver’s poems, which although not too varied in style or trope, are nonetheless beau..more
Nov 28, 2018Cynda rated it liked itNext, we are given a sample of Carver’s poems, which although not too varied in style or trope, are nonetheless beau..more
Shelves: friend-suggested, anthology-collection, short-story, poetry, 20th-century, essays
My friend Landa and I have a theory. (It was Landa's first.) We think we like gentler, more thoughtful, more attentive men. But when the car breaks down or the hurricane is coming or the lawn needs to be mowed, we want burly competent men. These men. Competent. Strong. Fixers. Workers.
In his essays, poems, stories Carver writes about how real living, breathing men are like, a combination of characteristics, something way beyond the stereotypes. I particularly enjoyed the essays. I kept finding..more
In his essays, poems, stories Carver writes about how real living, breathing men are like, a combination of characteristics, something way beyond the stereotypes. I particularly enjoyed the essays. I kept finding..more
Fires is a mix of Carver's essays, poems and early versions of short stories, some published in 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,' pieces that aren't really tied together but don't really fit with his other work. It's a great read and offers some real insight on Carver and his writing.
I especially liked the essays, which are all about writing and his influences, and offer some great advice for other writers and even inspiration, given that Carver was struggling to be a writer while w..more
I especially liked the essays, which are all about writing and his influences, and offer some great advice for other writers and even inspiration, given that Carver was struggling to be a writer while w..more
Jan 17, 2016Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Another excellent collection from Raymond Carver, this one a selection of 4 essays, 50 poems and 7 short stories.
I did not read this book in the 'correct' order, reading the poems first, then the short stories, finishing with the essays, but I think it would be best to begin with the essays as it is here that Carver talks about his children, his father, his writing and his influences, giving a little context to the content of some of his poems and short stories. I particularly liked the section..more
Jul 13, 2009Daniel rated it it was amazingI did not read this book in the 'correct' order, reading the poems first, then the short stories, finishing with the essays, but I think it would be best to begin with the essays as it is here that Carver talks about his children, his father, his writing and his influences, giving a little context to the content of some of his poems and short stories. I particularly liked the section..more
Shelves: 2009, books-about-writers, books-about-writing
'Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories' is nearly flawless, and highly recommended to anyone either coming to Raymond Carver for the first time or already a fan of his work. My friend Jennifer (thanks for lending it to me, Jennifer!) has already written a fine review at http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/.. so I won't write a long review here. I do, however, want to call attention to 'You Don't Know What Love Is (an evening with Charles Bukowski),' which, I'm assuming, is pretty much a transcript of..more
Jan 02, 2017Realini rated it it was amazing · review of another edition Shelves: delightful, favorites, pulitzer, masterpiece
Fires by Raymond Carver
Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list..
After the essay On Writing, Raymond Carver explains more about his art, the suffering involved in it in:
- Fires
The reader learns about the greatest influence on the author, the hardships endured and some of his convictions.
His children had the greatest influence on Raymond Carver.
He mentions a quote from Flannery O’Connor, which was something like this:
- All..more
Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list..
After the essay On Writing, Raymond Carver explains more about his art, the suffering involved in it in:
- Fires
The reader learns about the greatest influence on the author, the hardships endured and some of his convictions.
His children had the greatest influence on Raymond Carver.
He mentions a quote from Flannery O’Connor, which was something like this:
- All..more
Out of all the wonderful pieces of work in this collection of essays, shorts and poems, The Cabin is perhaps THE example of quintessential Carver. Astonishingly vivid just a few words in, Carver chooses his words sparingly and lovingly like a painter selects his blends of colours and shades. Not much happens, yet everything is felt.
Fires also satisfied my curiosity to read his poetry, a mix of touching, abstract, ominous and-in the case of You Don't Know What Love is, an account of an evening s..more
Fires also satisfied my curiosity to read his poetry, a mix of touching, abstract, ominous and-in the case of You Don't Know What Love is, an account of an evening s..more
According to the Afterword, Carver revised 'So Much Water So Close to Home,' and although I didn't know that while reading the version of the story in this book, I found myself much more engaged in (and disturbed by) the story this time around.
In Carver's interview with the Paris Review (included at the end of the book), he gives some thoughts on the purpose of fiction: 'It doesn't have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it, and the different kind of..more
In Carver's interview with the Paris Review (included at the end of the book), he gives some thoughts on the purpose of fiction: 'It doesn't have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it, and the different kind of..more
Feb 10, 2013Lisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
I am giving this book five stars because I love Raymond Carver, but I am disappointed in my particular copy. I got it at a used book store and it looked fine on the outside, but it must've been a misprint. In one of the stories a page was missing, and then later in the book, it repeated a huge chunk of pages, so I ended up missing four stories entirely. How does that even happen?
Jul 22, 2019Laszlo Szerdahelyi rated it it was amazing
I guess at this point, there's nothing about Carver that can be said that hasn't been said already. Seamless minimalist prose that breaks through the layer of emotion lying just under the skin and goes straight to the heart, one short sharp shock. That's Carver in a nutshell, his prose and his poetry.
But, as with most things you always learn more and 4 essays, 7 short stories and 52 poems later there's always more to learn, more depth, more understanding of his character as a writer and his abil..more
But, as with most things you always learn more and 4 essays, 7 short stories and 52 poems later there's always more to learn, more depth, more understanding of his character as a writer and his abil..more
I found the essays in Fires inspiring and brilliantly written. I found a handful of the poems readable and the stories; as a collection of stories I found them mismatched. Not the best Carver I’ve read but worth it for the essays.
Essays:
I enjoyed On Writing and Fires the most.
On Writing inspired me and filled me with hope. I found it poignantly authentic, like most of his other work.
Fires changed my mind about a few assumptions I held about the definition of the word “influence”. I found it a..more
Essays:
I enjoyed On Writing and Fires the most.
On Writing inspired me and filled me with hope. I found it poignantly authentic, like most of his other work.
Fires changed my mind about a few assumptions I held about the definition of the word “influence”. I found it a..more
Mar 29, 2019Tom McInnes rated it really liked it · review of another edition
In its capacity as a kinda grab bag of inter-related essays, (lots of) poetry and a few early drafts of stories that would later be transmogrified and made famous in other collections, it works as a pretty great entry point to the bleak, dry, sometimes funny and always aching worldview of Carver that is, for sullen SWMs like me, a real balm against the indignity of just existing.
As they stand, the poetry section features one poem, ‘Luck’, which made me shake with recognition and is now amongst m..more
As they stand, the poetry section features one poem, ‘Luck’, which made me shake with recognition and is now amongst m..more
Wow! While many of the poems in this book are light and elegant but the short stories are dark, rich and full of details that make them come alive. Carver tells stories without being too explicit. Letting the reader bring thoughtful consideration to the story. He seems to trust the reader. I felt trusted.
I also loved the poems about the outdoors. The environment. Fishing, boating, being in the forest. Surprising juxtaposition with the gritty stories. I plan on reading more by Raymond Carver.
I also loved the poems about the outdoors. The environment. Fishing, boating, being in the forest. Surprising juxtaposition with the gritty stories. I plan on reading more by Raymond Carver.
I still think his fiction is boring, but his essays are refreshing, his poetry is very, very good and the interview was pretty interesting.
Love how his view on writing is so similar to Kerouac’s, yet so evidently from the humble perspective of an embarrassed realist:
“At the risk of appearing foolish, a writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand and gape at this or that thing—a sunset or an old shoe—in absolute and simple amazement.”
Love how his view on writing is so similar to Kerouac’s, yet so evidently from the humble perspective of an embarrassed realist:
“At the risk of appearing foolish, a writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand and gape at this or that thing—a sunset or an old shoe—in absolute and simple amazement.”
Jun 18, 2019Stephen Curran rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
A grab-bag from the boss of the short form, comprising essays, poems and stories. Excepting the poems, which are new to me, there’s nothing here I haven’t read at least once before in one of Raymond Carvers numerous other collections. But if anyone is worth re-reading, it’s him. The final story, ‘So Much Water So Close to Home’, I must have read five times over the past twenty years, but each time it offers something new. It sticks with you, that one.
Valuable if you want to see how a writer was made. Essays work like quick vodka shots. The stories collected are early attempts, still not sharp enough, the dialogues clumsy. It is very inspiring in a way. If you continue doing for a long time what really matters to you and if you are honest, things may work out.
The essay part is just great and informative, giving a picture of the construction of Carver's life and writing creeds. But the poems are poor; they make sense, yet are all but tantamount to nonsense. The stories, in comparison with the revised edition, seem absolutely verbose.
A good introduction and sample of Raymond Carter's writing. The stories on his father and poetry professor were especially enjoyable. The Mississippi poem was also a standout. Will be reading more Carver
Jul 01, 2017David rated it liked it · review of another edition Shelves: genre-poetry, genre-short-stories, paper-copy, fiction, bcc-books-returned
Some nice poetry and great insights into authors and authoring. I didn't know his work till I read this collection. Found a second hand copy so will revisit when it gets here.
I loved it.
The essays are so beautiful.
The essays are so beautiful.
May 05, 2018Keith rated it really liked it
Not sure what I think of Carver as a poet. It’s interesting to see longer edits of prior stories in this edition. I am depressed
Enjoyed the essays most of all, great insight into craft.
A good (although not essential) collection of poems and stories. The essays to begin the collection are a nice introduction to the author, however.
I love reading writers writing about writing, which some of this was.
Nicely written but predictably downbeat and gloomy! Have read several of the short stories in another collection.
Jan 08, 2019Sheridan Hopkins rated it really liked it
The last story “Too much water so close to home” is challenging and brilliant.
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Carver was born into a poverty-stricken family at the tail-end of the Depression. He married at 19, started a series of menial jobs and his own career of 'full-time drinking as a serious pursuit', a career that would eventually kill him. Constantly struggling to support his wife and family, Carver enrolled in a writing programme under author John Gardner in 1958. He saw this opportunity as a turni..more
“I hate tricks. At the first sign of a trick or gimmick in a piece of fiction, a cheap trick or even an elaborate trick, I tend to look for cover. Tricks are ultimately boring, and I get bored easily, which may go along with my not having much of an attention span. But extremely clever chi-chi writing, or just plain tomfoolery writing, puts me to sleep. Writers don't need tricks or gimmicks or even necessarily need to be the smartest fellows on the block. At the risk of appearing foolish, a writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand and gape at this or that thing- a sunset or an old shoe- in absolute and simple amazement.” — 78 likes
“Years later,
I still wanted to give up
friends, love, starry skies,
for a house where no one
was home, no one coming back,
and all I could drink” — 6 likes
More quotes…I still wanted to give up
friends, love, starry skies,
for a house where no one
was home, no one coming back,
and all I could drink”
Thursday, January 14, 2010
By Angela Carone, Maureen Cavanaugh
Audio
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Raymond Carver, considered a master of the modern short story, lived a turbulent and dramatic life, but there has never been a biography of him until now. California writer Carol Sklenicka is author of the detailed 'Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life' which traces Carver's struggles with alcoholism, marriage, poverty and his long-time editor Gordon Lish. Sklenicka will sign copies of her book at The Book Works in Del Mar.
MAUREEN CAVANAUGH (Host): I'm Maureen Cavanaugh, and you're listening to These Days on KPBS. A teenage marriage, inability to hold down a job, brushes with the law, domestic violence and an addiction to alcohol. The description sounds like the recipe for a failed and somewhat tragic life. It is also a thumbnail biography of one of America's master storytellers, writer Raymond Carver. That there was so much more to Carver than the brutal facts of his life is the substance of a rich and rigorously researched new biography. The story of Raymond Carver, who has been called America's Chekov, is complicated and his literary legacy is controversial. Here to tell us about her book is Carol Sklenicka, author of 'Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life.' And, Carol, welcome to These Days.
CAROL SKLENICKA (Author): Good morning.
CAVANAUGH: Now, Raymond Carver’s considered by many to be the master of the modern short story, and yet yours is the first biography of him. What made you want to write about Carver?
SKLENICKA: Well, the simple answer is that I wanted to read about him and I was an English teacher and a writer and it just dawned on me that if no one else had written a biography maybe there was an opportunity for me to do that.
CAVANAUGH: And tell us a sense – give us a sense of the place the Carver holds in literary history.
SKLENICKA: I think he’s probably the most influential and still widely read of the American short story writers from the middle, you know, from the ‘80s basically. That’s when his star was the highest. And a lot of people still remember him. Those who don’t, are still reading stories that come under his influence because he affected so many other writers.
CAVANAUGH: You know, sometimes 20th century writers that are that influential are not accessible to the average reader but you say that’s not the case with Carver.
SKLENICKA: That’s why I say he’s the most popular writer because he’s extremely accessible, very easy to read. When I was working on the book, I always had Carver paperbacks with me when I was in restaurants and I can’t tell you how many times people came up to me and said, you know, waiters, people working, came up to me and said, oh, Raymond Carver, I love his work, or, I read one of his stories in high school, things like that. People remember him when they’ve read his work and it’s funny, it’s sad but funny and, of course short because he wrote short stories.
CAVANAUGH: Umm-hmm.
SKLENICKA: That makes it easier.
CAVANAUGH: And, of course, there is this term that you have to deal with, minimalist. He has been associated with minimalism. But Raymond Carver himself was not fond of that term. Tell us where – what his feeling was about that and where he fits in with that whole idea of a minimalist writer.
SKLENICKA: Well, that term simply means that his stories are short, his sentences are short, his details are carefully selected. It connects with the whole controversy we’ll probably get to that he had with his editor. But he didn’t like the term because it was slapped on him by a reviewer he didn’t particularly like and in reference to a book that he was not happy about the outcome on, so for all those reasons he rejected the term. It’s not a very useful term for literature. It applies to things like the music of John Cage and it’s used in art but it hasn’t been a handy term in literature, I don’t think.
CAVANAUGH: Now what are some of Carver, for people who are not familiar with Raymond Carver, what are some of his best known works?
SKLENICKA: I was going to tell you about a story called “They’re Not Your Husband.”
CAVANAUGH: Umm-hmm.
SKLENICKA: It’s a story – first of all, isn’t that a funny title…
CAVANAUGH: Yes.
SKLENICKA: …when you think about it. It’s a story from the point of view of a husband who goes to watch his wife work in a coffee shop. She’s a waitress. And he overhears some other guys commenting that she’s overweight when she’s bending over to scoop ice cream. They’re basically looking up her skirt. And he begins getting on his wife’s case and telling her to lose weight, which she does. And then he goes back to the restaurant and tries to hear what people say after she’s lost weight and it’s – it’s just very revealing of the interaction of this couple and yet it’s also a very simple story. There’s no psychological analysis or anything. You just see how these people behave. And at the end of the story, the guy’s need to have his ego stroked by hearing other guys talk about his wife is just completely revealed and unraveled. And that’s the kind of stuff he wrote about.
CAVANAUGH: Slice of life, working class life, troubles between men and women. They were all – they’re all the substance of Raymond Carver stories. I’m speaking with Carol Sklenicka. She is the author of 'Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life,” a new biography about Raymond Carver. And it was a long time before Carver was discovered as a writer. Why was that?
SKLENICKA: It was a long time. It might seem surprising because he was so successful but this is what most writers go through. It’s a very big country and America is a very big country and very few writers can be on the bestseller list so – and there are a lot of people who want to be writers so just look at the odds. That – He took forever because it takes a long time to get attention. He made it because he was really tenacious. He did most of his work in California and he was published by small presses out here and he just never gave up on that process until he got noticed.
CAVANAUGH: Now, of course, a lot of your biography is about his private life but he also put a lot of his private life into his work. And one of the major things about his private life that he put into his work was his relationship with his first wife, Maryann, and they married very young.
SKLENICKA: She was 16 when they married. They had two children as quickly as it’s biologically possible to have two children, not twins. And they were – they grew up together, really. He was only 19 when they married. They went – She put him through college and then got herself through college through the California State College system, by the way. And she supported him all the way. She, I think, worried that having a family would slow down his writing career and she promised him that that wouldn’t happen and she broke her back to try to make it possible.
CAVANAUGH: It – Was she, in a sense, his muse?
SKLENICKA: I think so. A lot of his friends told me that. He continued to write stories about her long after they were divorced. She was always someone there in the shadow of the stories. A lot of the female characters resemble her.
CAVANAUGH: And yet right on the brink of his success, they divorced, and the marriage was rather troubled. Tell us a little bit about that.
SKLENICKA: It was, I suppose, now people would say it’s a dysfunctional marriage although it – it held them – you know, things – something about it held them together. They were deeply connected. The troubles, a lot of them came from alcohol, they came from not knowing how to deal with alcohol, not knowing what alcohol was doing to them. From not having good jobs, from living on the edge always, they lived in expensive places like Palo Alto on very low salaries, so that was a stressful thing. Why did they break up when they were finally successful? I – My sense of it and the book goes into all this in great detail but my sense of it is that, you know, they had really just worn each other out. They’d gone as far as they could with it and he particularly wanted a fresh start. It was just easier for him to meet someone else and reorganize his life, which is what he did.
CAVANAUGH: We’re talking about a new biography of Raymond Carver, the 20th century American master storyteller. The biography is called 'Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life,” and the author is Carol Sklenicka. Carol, we hear so much about American – great American authors being troubled by alcohol. In Raymond Carver’s case, why do you think that that became such a central thing to his life and he was consumed by it for so much of his life?
SKLENICKA: I wish I could answer that. I’d be a genius if I could. There’s a genetic factor. His father and his grandfather were alcoholics. There were all those frustrations that I just mentioned and you listed. So he certainly turned to alcohol. He said he didn’t realize that he was slipping into alcoholism. His first wife, Maryann, said the same. The disease does just catch up with people. It changes the brain in ways that people aren’t conscious of. It took him a long time to quit. I think maybe because he just didn’t have the tools for a long time. He went to very brief rehabs where, as it turns out, that someone in a bad situation like he was probably needs a longer rehab period, which he finally got. And he needed something to hope for. It’s interesting, a psychologist came up to me at a reading the other night and said, you know, Carver didn’t really quit drinking until he had a contract to write a novel.
CAVANAUGH: Umm…
SKLENICKA: And that’s true. And this guy said, I know this goes against rehab theory but it looks to me like having that hope, you know, that new job, that something to live for, gave him a big kick in the pants.
CAVANAUGH: You know, all through this alcoholic nightmare that he spent, all the years of not being able to control this addiction, he was still writing. And you write in your book that Carver would learn to use stories as a tool for emotional survival—I’m quoting now—a means of negotiating the terrifying waters of his own psyche. Say more about this. What did writing mean to him through those years?
SKLENICKA: I think writing, all his life, from the time he was a teenager, was the thing that he felt most confident about. I don’t think he ever really had a lot of doubt that he was a good writer. And who knows why that was because his writing style changed a lot over the years but I think it was the solid place that he could come back to. He didn’t write much during his most severe alcoholic years, a couple of years, but he still attended to his writing business. He wrote letters to editors and kept his stories in the mail, so he just never let go of his clutch on that little life raft he had.
CAVANAUGH: Speaking of editors, Carver’s most significant professional relationship was with his editor Gordon Lish. Describe Gordon Lish and his editorial style when it comes to Carver’s work.
SKLENICKA: I go into the whole drama of Lish and Carver in my book. They knew each other from 1968 until Carver’s death, so a long time. They met in California. When they met, Lish was a man without a mission. Within a couple years, through some amazing events, he became the fiction editor at Esquire magazine and read his friend Ray Carver’s work and eventually published Carver. Lish is a man of tremendous energy. I’ve talked to him in person and on the phone many times. He has this terrifically seductive radio voice.
CAVANAUGH: Uh-huh.
SKLENICKA: He had been a radio guy. And I think he won Ray Carver over the way he wins a lot of people over with his skill and energy and enthusiasm. He’s – he loves fiction. He has a lot of opinions about it. This made him, as an editor, quite aggressive because he never had any doubt that his way of doing something was the best.
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CAVANAUGH: And people – There are people who argue now that it was too aggressive when it came to Raymond Carver’s work and that some of his short stories, while he was working with Lish, were edited in a way that perhaps Carver would – did not approve of. He did not approve of them. And I wonder, did you think that Lish took advantage of Carver perhaps because he was drinking?
SKLENICKA: I think he took advantage of him because he couldn’t help himself. He actually adored Carver’s material. Everyone says when they first worked together, he thought it was amazing and he was a friend to Carver. He would later deny that. But he got too aggressive on the middle of three books that they did together. That book is called “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.”
CAVANAUGH: And that’s Lish’s title.
SKLENICKA: That’s a title that Lish pulled out of Carver’s sentences, which is often how he found titles. Carver had written the phrase but not made it the title. And that’s – that seems, to me, legitimate. Carver approved the title.
CAVANAUGH: Uh-huh.
SKLENICKA: But there were other things in that book that Carver did not approve and that’s why the Library of America has recently included an early version of those stories in their big volume so readers can look for themselves. I actually have an example marked here of a…
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CAVANAUGH: Yes, please.
SKLENICKA: …a Lish edit…
CAVANAUGH: Yes, yes.
SKLENICKA: …that you might like to hear. It’s from the story I talked about earlier about the waitress. Here’s the way Carver wrote it: ‘The white skirt tightened against her hips and crawled up her legs, exposing the lower part of her girdle, the backs of her fleshy thighs and several dark, broken veins behind her knees.’ And this is the way Lish edited it. This is actually in Carver’s first book. ‘The white skirt yanked against her hips and crawled up her legs.’ That’s the same. ‘What showed was girdle and it was pink, thighs that were rumpled and gray and a little hairy and veins that spread in a berserk display.’
CAVANAUGH: So the second one was…?
SKLENICKA: Was Lish.
CAVANAUGH: Oh, so that’s a little bit more than editing, isn’t it?
SKLENICKA: Yeah. It’s – it’s kind of brassy and, you know, if you were that woman—we’re talking about fiction—but…
CAVANAUGH: Yeah.
SKLENICKA: …let’s say you were that character, it’s a lot harsher.
CAVANAUGH: Yes. Yes.
SKLENICKA: It’s very striking. I mean, it’s – and it’s pretty good.
CAVANAUGH: Now they eventually did stop working together.
SKLENICKA: Yes.
CAVANAUGH: And you describe in your book their professional breakup. Could – I think you have a passage there that describes it. Could you read that for us?
SKLENICKA: Sure. This actually was something that a later editor of Carver’s told me and he said: ‘Being around Ray and Gordon in the early 1980s was like watching a marriage go bad. It seemed like Gordon Lish was the one guy who couldn’t be happy about Ray’s success. He couldn’t enjoy it and had to fight it. It was a case of strong affection polluted for reasons of ego and frustration.’
CAVANAUGH: And so that – that’s the characteristic of their breakup and, of course, since you described it – him for us, you have spoken with Lish for this biography. What does he say about his role in Carver’s career?
SKLENICKA: He is really all over the map about it. It took me a long time to pin him down to a point where I believed what he was saying. The first thing he told me was that Carver had been a hoax, that he’d created this work and that it was really his work. It was almost like he thought Carver didn’t exist. He backed off of that position which was, I think, a dramatic thing to say but he knew it wasn’t true. I think what he really wanted was credit as a sort of co-creator. And Carver never in his lifetime told people what Lish had done for him. He praised him in general terms as an editor but he never talked about the extent of the editing or the humiliation of that middle book that Carver wanted restored to his own version and not Lish’s version. And so because Carver covered all this up, Lish didn’t get the credit he wanted and he wanted more credit than editors are supposed to get. He was breaking the rules of editor – editorial practice and so it bothered other editors, too.
CAVANAUGH: That’s a fascinating relationship. We’re talking about “Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life,” a new biography by Carol Sklenicka who is my guest. And one person who did not talk to you, though, was Carver’s second wife, Tess Gallagher. Tell us about her and why you think she refused to talk to you for this biography.
SKLENICKA: Tess Gallagher met Carver when he was separated from his first wife—I was looking for the right phrase there—quite a ways before Carver got divorced but they were somewhat separated, briefly separated. And the two – Carver and Gallagher, who was a well known poet, got together in 1979 and were together for the rest of Carver’s life, which ended in ‘88. She was a tremendous help to him. They had kind of parallel literary careers, were very much on the same wave length as far as putting their careers first. I think she enabled him to separate himself from some of his family problems and issues he felt he had with his children. She was very well organized, helped him.
CAVANAUGH: And…
SKLENICKA: Got his bills paid, things like that.
CAVANAUGH: Very good. And…
SKLENICKA: So it was a very productive relationship for them. Why she didn’t talk to me, I can’t tell you. She was fairly aggressive about that. I can only guess that she wanted to maintain her privacy. She may have her own biographer designated, although if that’s the case I haven’t come across any evidence that that person is working.
CAVANAUGH: Now Carver was not drinking at the time he was with Tess Gallagher, is that right?
SKLENICKA: That’s right. He had quit drinking about a year before he hooked up with Tess Gallagher and she was instrumental in helping him stay sober but, lucky for her, he was already sober so she missed the worst of his terrible, terrible illness.
CAVANAUGH: Now, after a rather troubled lifetime, being sober and successful, Carver actually dies at a very young age. Tell us about the final year of his life.
SKLENICKA: Well, there was one addiction that he couldn’t give up and that was cigarettes, which he had smoked probably since he was ten years old. So at the age of 50, he died of lung cancer.
CAVANAUGH: And would you say at that point in his life he was content with what his work had become?
SKLENICKA: I think so, and I think he even had a sense that he was going to die young. Maryann Carver said that he always had a sense he would die young. For the last five years of his life, it was – he reportedly said we’re out there in history now, he would say that to Tess Gallagher, so he was looking at his legacy, I think, and was very happy. He thought it was all gravy, he said. It was a…
CAVANAUGH: His write…
SKLENICKA: …miraculous life. He couldn’t believe that he got those ten extra years because he really thought he was going to die of the booze.
CAVANAUGH: Was his writing different when he was sober as opposed to when he was drinking?
SKLENICKA: I think so. He broke from Gordon Lish so his writing was more like it had always been, there’s that. It’s not as different as it might look if you don’t know that. He wrote more poems. He wrote longer poems. He wrote more stories that have somewhat happy end – I don’t know if you want to say happy endings but a little uplift at the end, although he’d done that all along and sometimes Lish changed them. But I think he – You know, he was more expansive. He let himself go in that direction and felt like it was the right direction for him, that he didn’t always have to do the dark, funny side of things.
CAVANAUGH: Do you think this Lish controversy is going to, in some way, impair the legacy of Raymond Carver?
SKLENICKA: I think it’s holding people’s attention a little bit more than it needs to. I hope Carver’s work will outpace that eventually. I actually hope my book’ll help that happen now that people can get the details of the whole controversy and see some of the examples plus the Library of America publication is a big coup for Carver, so I think he’s on his way. I think people will still be reading him. I, you know, I don’t do long term predictions so I don’t know how he’ll stand up against other writers but there’s really nobody quite like him so he should have his place.
CAVANAUGH: Now, Carol, you spent ten years in total researching and writing this book. I wonder, do you know what you’re going to be working on now? Do you have another biography in store?
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SKLENICKA: I’ve been debating. I have some environmental interests I’d like to write about but I think literary biography is what I’ve learned how to do now and so I would like to do another one. I haven’t picked a subject yet. People are giving me their ideas and I love that. I hope to hear some tonight. But…
CAVANAUGH: Yes, because you’ll be signing copies of your book at the Bookworks Bookstore at 7:00 p.m. And, of course, the book is called 'Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life.' Carol Sklenicka, thank you so much.
SKLENICKA: Thank you. It’s been fun.
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