Raymond Carver's America is helpless, clouded by pain and the loss of dreams, but it is not as fragile as it looks. It is a place of survivors and a place of stories...[Carver] has done what many of the most gifted writers fail to do: He has invented a country of his own, like no other except that very world, as Wordsworth said, which is the world to all of us. -Michael Wood, front page, The New York Times Book ReviewSplendid...The collection as a whole, unlike most, begins to grow and resonate in a wonderful cumulative effect. -Tim O'Brien, Chicago Tribune Book WorldCarver's fiction is so spare in manner that it takes a time before one realizes how completely a whole culture and a whole moral condition is represented by even the most seemingly slight sketch. This second volume of stories is clearly the work of a full-grown master. -Frank KermodeCarver not only enchants, he convinces. -J.D. Reed, Time