John Berendt

Carver’s spare, minimalist style serves as a writer’s manual for how to get more out of less. In a sentence, or even just a phrase, Carver establishes the mood, the nature of his characters and their predicament. He gives us clues instead of paragraphs of description or lengthy dialogue. I often put people onto Carver, especially when they’ve shown me something they’ve written that needs drastic paring down. Now and then I’ve found it a good corrective when my own writing gets out of hand. My copy of this collection (thirty stories arranged chronologically by the date they were written) is well worn. Carver had something original to show the rest of us, and his early death is a real tragedy.