Just finished reading Raymond Carver’s collection Where I’m Calling From and as usual I’m both sad and happy to finish a good book. Happy to have read it but sad that it’s over.
Anyway, for any writer interested in short stories Carver offers a masterclass. The qualities I liked:
Honesty, he told the truth.
Economy, his writing is lean. No extra fat.
Endings, he never wraps everything up in a neat bow. He makes the reader work to discover his meaning.
Voice, his characters speak with their own unique voices. They live and breath in his stories.
My favourite? Probably Blackbird Pie. It has a sense of the Gothic about it with the fog and the strange letter slipped under the door. And the narrator’s voice remains so disconnected from reality all the way through. There is no redemption for him.
A great collection.
J.
