By the time of his death in 1988, Raymond Carver had established himself as the dean of American minimalist writers and the preeminent chronicler of an America many would prefer to ignore: a land of rented rooms and repossessed cars, late-night drunken phone calls, and demeaning jobs. Whatever momentary triumphs or loves his characters enjoy are often only temporary respites from ultimate loss, betrayal, and defeat.
This Library of America volume pulls together a career-spanning collection of his short fiction, in which from first to last Carver wrote about the lives of the defeated with a distinctive empathy, even - or perhaps especially - when his characters were at their most self-destructive. Carver had an unfailing and informed eye for the traps so many people stumble into, the vicious combination of circumstance and simple human frailty that sets the stage for self-compounding mistakes: the job loss that leads to the daytime drinking or the eviction that turns out to be more burden than an already frail marriage could bear.
