In the same essay, he makes a point of praising judicious omission: “What creates tension in a piece of fiction is partly the way the concrete words are linked together to make up the visible action of the story. In ‘Errand’ he demonstrates that his signature is neither brevity nor the bleak realities of damaged working class lives, but rather the accuracy and authority of his prose.” I was quoting from an essay Carver published in The New York Times in early 1981, when he was still very much Lish’s creature. ![]() Here’s my vintage 1988 opinion of Carver’s very last story: “Great writers, Carver once said, leave their ‘particular and unmistakable signature’ on everything they write. I was clearly rooting for the fuller, longer, warmer, pre- and post-Lish Carver. 31, $4.99), I reread that maiden effort, and was surprised to find that without knowing it, I’d already taken sides. In the light of the Carver-Lish editing controversy, and with The New Yorker fanning the flames in the fiction issue (Dec. ![]() Carver died, age 50, while I was working on the piece. By sad coincidence, my first ever book review (published in the London Review of Books nearly two decades ago) was of Raymond Carver’s last book, Elephant and Other Stories.
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