17 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
RESOURCES
Primary Works
Marshall Bruce Gentry and William L. Stull, eds., Conversations with Raymond
Carver ( Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990).
The most comprehensive collection of interviews with Carver.
Raymond Carver: Collected Stories, edited by William L. Stull and Maureen Car-
roll (New York: Library of America, 2009).
A comprehensive collection of Carver’s stories, including sketches and works
discovered after his death. Original and published versions of stories allow readers
to see the extent of Gordon Lish’s editing of Carver’s work.
Stull, “Prose as Architecture: Two Interviews with Raymond Carver,” Clockwatch
Review, 10, 1–2 (1995) http://titan.iwu.edu/~jplath/carver.html [accessed
18 November 2009].
Two interviews translated into English, one conducted in Paris in 1987 by French
journalist Claude Grimal, titled “Stories Don’t Come out of Thin Air,” and the
second conducted by Silvia Del Pozzo for Panorama, a Milanese weekly, in 1986,
titled “I’m Sort of Their Father.” Both appeared upon the publication of a foreign-
language translation of Carver’s work.
Biography
Sam Halpert, Raymond Carver: An Oral Biography (Iowa City: University of Iowa
Press, 1995).
A collection of vignettes about Carver by his family, friends, and colleagues,
arranged in chronological order. These stories shed light on Carver’s life and
reveal connections between the stories and biographical details.
Carol Sklenicka, Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life (New York: Scribner, 2009).
The most detailed look at Carver’s life available, with generous attention to the
writing.
Criticism
Arthur Bethea, Technique and Sensibility in the Fiction and Poetry of Raymond
Carver (New York: Routledge, 2001).
Critical approaches to Carver’s fiction and poetry. Bethea considers stylistic con-
cerns such as Carver’s use of unreliable narrators, symbolism, and omission, as
well as themes such as alcoholism, family, death, and marriage.
Ewing Campbell, Raymond Carver: A Study of the Short Fiction (New York:
Twayne, 1992).
A critical study of short fiction tracing stages in Carver’s development as a writer
from what Campbell refers to as his “apprenticeship” through his “mastery and
continued growth.” Also included are Carver’s essay “On Writing,” an interview
conducted by Larry McCaffery, and several critical essays.