Book Description
With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.


From the Inside Flap
With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.


About the Author
Raymond Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, in 1938. His first collection of stories, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please (a National Book Award nominee in 1977), was followed by What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Cathedral (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1984), and Where I'm Calling From in 1988, when he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He died in August of that year, shortly after completing the poems of A New Path to the Waterfall.

ANNOTATION

With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story and instantly became both the recognized master of the form and one of our best-loved and most widely read fiction writers. His stories can "be counted among the masterpieces of American fiction."--The New York Times Book Review.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.

FROM THE CRITICS

Geoffrey Wolff

"Potent...Carver's prose, for all its simplicity, carries his mark everywhere....His tact and precision are marvelous. (His) stories have been carefully shaped, shorn of ornamentation and directed away from anything that might mislead. They are brief stories but by not means short: they imply conplexities of action and motives....Mr. Carver's work here is done, and wonderfully." -- New York Times Book Review

Irving Howe

"Among the masterpieces of American fiction." -- The New York Times Book Review

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

"Raymond Carver's stories are extraordinary in their language, their music and their huge terrifying revision of ordinary human life in this country. He is among the best authentically American writers we now have." — Leonard Michaels