Raymond Carver

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Raymond Carver (1938-1988). Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Raymond Carver
Born	May 25, 1938(1938-Template:MONTHNUMBER-25) Clatskanie, Oregon, United States
Died	August 2, 1988(1988-Template:MONTHNUMBER-02) (aged 50) Port Angeles, Washington, United States]
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	American
Period	1958–1988
Literary movement	Minimalism, Dirty realism
Influences John Gardner, Anton Chekhov, Ernest Hemingway, William Carlos Williams, Flannery O'Connor, James Salter, Isaac Babel, Frank O'Connor, Antonio Machado
Influenced Jay McInerney, Robert Altman, Richard Ford, Per Petterson, Tobias Wolff, Jayne Anne Phillips, Tess Gallagher, Mona Simpson, K.J. Stevens, Haruki Murakami, Tom Perrotta

Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. (May 25, 1938 - August 2, 1988) was an American poet and short story writer. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century, and a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s.

Life

Youth

Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, 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.

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 Paradise. 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, 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.(Citation needed)

His first collection, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, was first published in 1976; 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.(Citation needed)

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 3rd 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.(Citation needed)

Personal life

Carver met the poet Tess Gallagher 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.

Death

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, WA. 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.

Writing

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 From, 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.(Citation needed)

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 25, 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 -- 2 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."(Citation needed)

Recognition

Carver memorial, Raymond Carver Park, Clatskanie, Oregon. Photo by Richard Peterson. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

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 RC was born still stands; there is a plaque of Carver in the foyer.

Legacy and posthumous publications

In 2001, novelist Chuck Kinder 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 7 stories, titled Elephant in Britain (included in "Where I'm Calling From") was composed in the 5 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.(Citation needed)

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. Throughout his lifetime Carver won six O. Henry Awards: the 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.

In popular culture

• The 1989 album So Much Water So Close to Home by Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly, 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 Owen 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 Revolution by dEUS includes a song titled "What We Talk About (When We Talk About Love)".
• The 2011 album Summer of Lust by Library Voices includes a song titled "If Raymond Carver Were Born in the 90's".

Publications

See also: Raymond Carver bibliography

Poetry

• Near Klamath. Sacramento, CA: Sacramento: English Club of Sacramento State College, 1968.
• Winter Insomnia. Santa Cruz, CA: Kayak, 1970.
• At Night the Salmon Move. Santa Barbara, CA: Capra, 1976.
• Two Poems. Salisbury, MD: Scarab, 1982.
• This Water. Concord, NH: Ewert, 1986.
• Where Water Comes Together with Other Water: Poems. New York: Random House, 1985.
• Ultramarine. New York: Random House, 1986.
• In a Marine Light: Selected poems. London: Collins Harvill, 1987.
• Those Days: Early writings by Raymond Carver: Eleven poems and a story (edited by William L. Stull). Elmwood, CT: Raven Editions, 1987.
• A New Path to the Waterfall: Poems (introduction by Tess Gallagher). New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1989.
• All of Us: The collected poems (edited by William L. Stull). New York: Vintage, 2000.

Plays and scripts

• Dostoevsky: A screenplay (with Tess Gallagher). Santa Barbara, CA: Capra, 1985.

Short fiction

• Put Yourself in My Shoes. Santa Barbara: Capra, 1974.
• Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976.
• Furious Seasons, and other stories. Santa Barbara, CA: Capra, 1977.
• What We Talk about When We Talk about Love. New York: Knopf, 1981.
• The Pheasant. Worcester, MA: Metacom, 1982.
• "A Small, Good Thing". New York: Doubleday, 1983.
• Cathedral. New York: Knopf, 1983.
• If It Please You. Northridge, CA: Lord John, 1984.
• For Tess. William B. Ewert, 1984.
• The Stories of Raymond Carver. London: Picador, 1985.
• Saints. Random House, 1987.
• Elephant, and other stories. London: Collins Harvill, 1988.
• Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1988; Franklin Center, PA: Franklin Library, 1988.
• Carver Country. New York: Scribner, 1990.
• Short Cuts: Selected Stories, Vintage, 1993.
• Call if You Need Me: The uncollected fiction, and other prose (edited by William L. Stull). New York: Vintage, 2001.

Non-fiction

• My Father's Life. Derry, NH: Babcock & Koontz, 1986.
• Conversations With Raymond Carver (edited by Marshall Bruce Gentry & William L. Stull). University Press of Mississippi, 1990.

Collected editions

• Fires: Essays, poems, stories, 1966-1982. Santa Barbara, CA: Capra, 1983; New York: Vintage, 1984; New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1989.
• No Heroics, Please: Uncollected writings (edited by William L. Stull). London: Collins Harvill, 1991; New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1992.

Edited

• We Are Not in This Together: Stories (edited & foreword by Carver). St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1984.
• The Best American Short Stories, 1986 (edited with Shannon Ravenel). Boston: Houghton Miflin, 1986.
• American Short Story Masterpieces (edited with Tom Jenks). New York: Delacorte, 1987.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the International Raymond Carver Society.

Films and theatre adaptations

• Short Cuts directed by Robert Altman
• Everything Goes directed by Andrew Kotatko
• Jindabyne (based on So Much Water So Close to Home) directed by Ray Lawrence
• Everything Must Go directed by Dan Rush and starring Will Ferrell based on Carver's short story "Why Don't You Dance?"
• What's in Alaska? directed by Jim Fields.
• Carver, 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.

See also

Happiness by Raymond Carver

• List of U.S. poets

References

• Carver, Maryann Burk (2006). What It Used to Be Like; A Portrait of My Marriage to Raymond Carver. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-33258-0. 
• Nesset, Kirk (1995). Stories Of Raymond Carver: A Critical Study. Ohio University Press. ISBN 0821411004. 
• Charles McGrath (October 28, 2007). "I, Editor Author". Week in Review, New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/weekinreview/28mcgrath.html. Retrieved 2007-10-28. 
• Pieters, Jesús (2004). El silencio de lo real: sentido, comprensión e interpretación en la narrativa de Raymond Carver. Monte Ávila Editores Latinoamericana. ISBN 9789800112199. 
• Stull, William L. and Gentry, Marshall Bruce (editors) (1990). Conversations With Raymond Carver (Literary Conversations Series). University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 0878054499. 
• Stull, William L. and Carroll, Maureen P. (editors) (1993). Remembering Ray: A Composite Biography of Raymond Carver. Capra Press. ISBN 0884963705. 
• Runyon, Randolph Paul (1994). Reading Raymond Carver. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815626312. 
• Kleppe, Sandra Lee and Miltner, Robert (editors) (2008). New Paths to Raymond Carver; Critical Essays on His Life, Fiction, and Poetry. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 9781570037245. 
• Halpert, Sam (1995). Raymond Carver. An Oral Biography. University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-502-3. 
• 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.
• Sklenicka, Carol (Nov 2009). Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life. Scribner. ISBN 978-0-7432-6245-3. 
• 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.

External links

Poems

• Raymond Carver 1938-1988 at the Poetry Foundation.
• Raymond Carver at AllPoetry (20 poems)

Audio / video

• Raymond Clevie Carver at YouTube

Books

• Raymond Carver at Amazon.com

About

• "Raymond Carver, Writer and Poet of the Working Poor, Dies at 50," New York Times
• Raymond Carver in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Raymond Carver (1938-1988 in the Oregon Encyclopedia
• Raymond Carver at NNDB.
• Raymond Carver at Find a Grave
• Manga and Minimalism: The Shared Visions of Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Raymond Carver
• 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.
• Mona Simpson, Lewis Buzbee (Summer 1983). "Raymond Carver, The Art of Fiction No. 76". Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3059/the-art-of-fiction-no-76-raymond-carver. 
• Koehne, David (1978). "Echoes of Our Own Lives; An interview with Raymond Carver". http://www.sophieswoods.com/carver.html. 
• Hansen, Ron (2009). "Ron Hansen reviews the biography and short stories of Raymond Carver". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/11/AR2009121101707.html.  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
• Yardley, Jonathan (2006). "Raymond Carver's first wife remembers the influential American writer.". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/13/AR2006071301020.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns.  A review of Maryann Burk Carver's What It Used To Be Like; A Portrait of My Marriage to Raymond Carver
• Polsgrove, Carol (2009). "A Conversation on Raymond Carver". http://carolpolsgrove.com/interview/.  Historian Carol Polsgrove interviews Carver biographer Carol Sklenicka
• Myers, D. G. (1998). "Between Stories: A Memoir of Raymond Carver". Philosophy and Literature. http://www-english.tamu.edu/pers/fac/myers/between_stories.htm. 
• Gaby Wood (27 September 2009). "Raymond Carver: the kindest cut". The Observer. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep/27/raymond-carver-editor-influence. 
• Rights Battle Brews over Un-Edited Carver Stories, All Things Considered, January 7, 2008

Etc.

• The International Raymond Carver Society
• The Raymond Carver Review
• Map of Port Angeles marked with Carver's 'haunts' such as the Odyssey Bookshop
• 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.

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