Perhaps no writer of his generation has had more impact on the shape of fiction in the latter decades of the twentieth century than Raymond Carver. From the blue collar realism of his early writing to his expansive later stories, the cool-eyed intensity and steady witnessing of Carvers work remains an inspiration for readers and writers alike.
Call If You Need Me traces the arc of Carvers career, not in the widely anthologized stories that have become classics, but through his uncollected fiction and his essays. Here are the five last stories, discovered a decade after Carvers death. Also here are Carvers first published story, the fragment of an unfinished novel, and all of his nonfictionfrom a recollection of his father to reflections on writers as varied as Anton Chekhov and John Gardner, Donald Barthelme and Sherwood Anderson.
Call If You Need Me does not merely enhance the stature of a twentieth century master; it invites us to travel with a singular artist, step by step, as he discovers what is worth saying and how to say it so it pierces the heart