Raymond Carver

Burdened by alcoholism for most of his life, when American short story writer and poet Raymond Carver was asked why he quit drinking, he said “I guess I just wanted to live."¹ Like many famous writers, alcohol was a constant force in both Carver's life and in his literature. His poems and short stories are dominated by middle-class, mundane characters who struggle with darkness in their every day lives. Drinking, failed relationships, and death are some of the prominent themes that plagued not only his characters, but Carver himself as well. After almost losing his career, watching his marriage dissolve, and being hospitalized countless times, Carver finally stopped drinking at the age of 39.

Raymond Carver biography

Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (1938-1988) was born in a mill town in Oregon. The son of a sawmill worker, Carver experienced firsthand what life was like for the lower middle class. He married a year after finishing high school and had two children by the age of 20. In order to make ends meet, Carver worked as janitor, sawmill laborer, library assistant, and delivery man.

In 1958, he became extremely interested in writing after taking a creative writing class at Chico State College. In 1961, Carver published his first short story "The Furious Seasons". He continued to pursue his literary studies at Humboldt State College in Arcata, California, where he got his B.A. in 1963. During his time at Humboldt, Carver was the editor for Toyon, his college's literary magazine, and his short stories began to be published in various magazines.

Carver's first success as a writer came in 1967. His short story "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?" was included in Martha Foley's Best American Short Stories anthology, gaining him recognition in literary circles. He began work as a textbook editor in 1970, which was the first time he had a white-collar job.

Carver worked blue-collared jobs (like as a sawmill laborer) for much of his life, which influenced his writing pixabay

His father was an alcoholic, and Carver began drinking heavily in 1967 shortly following his father's death. Throughout the 1970s, Carver was repeatedly hospitalized for alcoholism. In 1971, his publication of "Neighbors" in the June issue of Esquire magazine earned him a teaching position at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He took another teaching position at the University of California, Berkeley in 1972. The stress of the two positions coupled with his alcohol-related illnesses caused him to resign his position at Santa Cruz. He went to a treatment center the next year but didn't stop drinking until 1977 with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous.

His drinking caused problems in his marriage. In 2006, his first wife released a memoir that detailed her relationship with Carver. In the book, she details how his drinking led to him cheating, which led to more drinking. While she was attempting to earn her Ph.D., she was constantly set back by her husband's illness:

In 1978, Carver got a new teaching position at the University of Texas at El Paso after falling in love with the poet Tess Gallagher at a writer's conference in Dallas the previous year. In 1980 Carter and his mistress moved to Syracuse, where he worked as a professor in the English department at Syracuse University and was appointed the coordinator for the creative writing program.

In addition to his poetry and short stories, Carver made a living teaching creative writing, pixabay.

Much of his most famous works were written in the 1980s. His short-story collections include What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981), Cathedral (1983), and Where I’m Calling From (1988). His poetry collections include At Night the Salmon Move (1976), Where Water Comes Together with Other Water (1985), and Ultramarine (1986).

Carver and his first wife divorced in 1982. He married Tess Gallagher in 1988, six weeks before he died of lung cancer. He is buried in Port Angeles, Washington at Ocean View Cemetery.

Raymond Carver short stories

Carver published several collections of short stories during his lifetime. His most famous collections of short stories include: Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (first published 1976), Furious Seasons and Other Stories (1977), What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981), and Cathedral (1983). "Cathedral" and "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" are also the names of two of Carver's most popular short stories.

Raymond Carver: "Cathedral" (1983)

The wife picks up Robert at the train station and brings him home. All throughout dinner the narrator is rude, barely engaging in the conversation. After dinner he turns on the TV while Robert and his wife are talking, annoying his wife. When she goes upstairs to get changed, Robert and the narrator listen to the TV program together.

When the program starts talking about cathedrals, Robert asks the narrator to explain a cathedral to him. The narrator does, and Robert asks him to draw a cathedral, putting his hand over the narrator's so he can feel the movements. The narrator gets lost in the drawing and has an existential experience.

The narrator and his wife's blind guest bond over cathedrals, pixabay

Raymond Carver: "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" (1981)

"What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" is another one of Carver's famous short stories. It deals with conflicts between ordinary people. In this short story, the narrator (Nick) and his new wife, Laura, are at their married friends' house drinking gin.

The four of them begin talking about love. Mel, who is a cardiologist, argues that love is spiritual, and he used to be in the seminary. Terry, his wife, says that before she married Mel she was in love with a man named Ed, who was so in love with her he tried to kill her and eventually killed himself. Mel argues that wasn't love, he was just crazy. Laura asserts that her and Nick know what love is. The group finishes the bottle of gin and starts in on a second one.

Mel says he's witnessed true love at the hospital, where an elderly couple got in a horrific accident and almost died. They survived, but the man was depressed because he couldn't see his wife in his cast. Mel and Terri bicker throughout the story and Mel asserts he wants to call his kids. Terri tells him he can't because then he'd have to talk to his ex wife, who Mel says he wishes he could kill. The group keeps drinking until its dark outside and Nick can hear everyone's heart beat.

The narrator and his friends discuss the nature of love while getting drunk on gin, pixabay

Raymond Carver's poems

Carver's poetry reads a lot like his prose. His collections include Near Klamath (1968), Winter Insomnia (1970), At Night The Salmon Move (1976), Fires (1983), Where Water Comes Together With Other Water (1985), Ultramarine (1986), and A New Path To The Waterfall (1989). One of Carver's most famous poetry collection was A Path To the Waterfall, published a year after his death.

Like his prose, Carver's poetry finds meaning in the every day lives of ordinary, middle-class people. "The Best Time of the Day" focuses on human connection in the midst of a demanding life. "Your Dog Dies" examines how art can take away the sting of loss and morality. 'What the Doctor Said' (1989) is about a man who just found out he has tumors on his lungs and will inevitably die from it. Carver's poetry examines the most mundane parts of everyday life and scrutinizes it until he discovers some truth about the human condition.

Raymond Carver: Quotes

Carver's works keenly reflect the human need for connection, while also focusing on how relationships collapse in on themselves. Carver's style is sometimes called dirty realism, where the mundane intersects with a dark reality. Carver writes about marriages dissolving, alcohol abuse, and loss in the working class. His quotes reflect the themes of his works: