Short Cuts

Description

This volume comprises the nine short stories and a poem by Carver from which Robert Altman wove his acclaimed film of the same title and it comes with an introduction by the director. Together the stories create an incisive portrait of American life and the American psyche.

Raymond Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, in 1938. His first short stories appeared in Esquire during Gordon Lish's tenure as fiction editor in the 1970s. Carver's work began to reach a wider audience with the 1976 publication of Will You Please be Quiet, Please?, but it was not until the 1981 publication of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love under Gordon Lish, then at Knopf, that he began to achieve real literary fame. This collection was edited by more than 40 per cent before publication, and Carver dedicated it to his fellow writer and future wife, Tess Gallagher, with the promise that he would one day republish his stories at full length. He went on to write two more collections of stories, Cathedral and Elephant, which moved away from the earlier minimalist style into a new expansiveness, as well as several collections of poetry. He died in 1988, aged fifty.

Raymond Carver's stories can be counted amongst the masterpieces of American fiction * New York Times * The stories overflow with danger, excitement, mystery and the possibility of life... His eye is so clear it almost breaks your heart * Washington Post * One of America's most original, truest voices -- Salman Rushdie Superb -- Ian McEwan