Short Cuts by: Raymond Carver

review by: Jill Brown '04

 Material for Carver's stories can be found in his own lifeHis father was an alcoholic who died at the age of 53 and his mother worked odd jobs including being a waitress. Carver grew up identifying with the laborers and that is ultimately who and what he writes about. While Carver was connected with John Gardner he was persuaded to publish his works in small literary magazines that did not pay in cash. The ability to earn money for writing may have been one quality that drew Carver to Gordon Lish who became his new editor in 1971 with the publication of "Neighbors" in Esquire. This first collaboration is not that different from Carver's earlier work, except that it is said to have a very controlled structure, style and audience. After 1977 when Carver stopped drinking and reevaluated his life, his work took a new path that mirrored his new path in life. He wrote about alcoholism and breakdown of marriages while at the same time abandoning the minimalist style of Lish and expanded on previous stories such as "The Bath" and made them into such great tales as "A Small Good Thing." Carver's work has gained such acclaim that it has been translated into more than 20 languages. One of the stories from Short Cuts, "So Much Water So Close to Home" was actually turned into a song by an Australian songwriter named Paul Kelly and the song is entitled "Everything is Turning to White."

Carver's many achievements include, the Guggenheim Fellow in 1979, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award, Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize, he was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Hartford, etc.

Most of the stories in Short Cuts fit into Carver's earlier theme of husband and wife relationships. And it is in through the breakdown of communication in these relationships that resentment arises. Lots of his stories tend to be about depressed people who get beat down in life but "Neighbors" stands out as one where his characters outwardly appear pleased while inwardly they are incomplete and live vicariously through their neighbor's possessions. A quick paraphrase of the main characters in Short Cuts includes: Neighbors, waitress, unemployed husband (2) vitamin saleswoman, hospital janitor, fishermen, baker, fathers, mothers, vacuum cleaner salesman, kids, husbands, wives and a blind man.

The obvious connection between all of these stories is their focus on everyday people and their interactions. If they aren't interested in sexual mischief in their neighbor's apartment they are having an argument over infidelity as in "Will you please be quiet please?" The marital relationship is a very common obsession of Carver's yet he finds many different ways in which to explore interactions. In "They're Not Your Husband" Earl resolves to make his wife lose weight, which seems quite tame compared with "So Much Water So Close To Home" where Stuart struggles through power and intimacy issues with his wife Claire who rejects him because he continued fishing after finding a dead body in the lake.

Sometimes the relationships are comical and sometimes they are so true to life you can imagine it in your own neighborhood, such as when Jerry resolves to get rid of the family dog that is destroying his life, or so he thinks, in "Jerry and Molly and Sam."