Raymond Carver created a literary speech uniquely his own, cryptic, confessional and laced with regret. In many ways he defined, even redefined, American domestic realism. He saw the vulnerability in the ordinary brutalities people commit in the name of life, love, and survival. The classic Carver narrator is a man pondering the bizarre circumstances which have brought him to where he now finds himself.
By then end of his life Carver was acknowledged as a master and in the ten years since his death at fifty in 1988, his reputation has continued to grow. This is his last book and the superb final story, "Errand", which is an imagined reconstruction of the death of Chekhov, a writer whom he greatly admired, is not only one of his finest stories, it also suggests that Carver was poised for artistic change and new directions.
