Raymond Carver changed the way I write, but that doesn't mean I approve. Reading his stories those years ago, I couldn't help but rant at him in my head for his half-bakedness as a writer. He claimed not to have the time to invest in a novel, but I know for sure he couldn't have done it. I've read stories where he tries for a more rounded shape and they always come out wonky.

Don't get me wrong. Carver was a master at what he did well. Really. But rather than writing some up-myself dissection of him here, why don't I just share a short caricature I wrote of him for a recent talk I gave:

Friday Night Weather

They were sat up in bed listening to the wind. She was nursing a tall glass of rum, the dead oak tapping on the window pane.

"This wind," she said. "This damn wind."

 "Why d'you have to drink in front of me," he said, "When you know."

"Know what?" she said.

"You know, that thing. Plus what's happening tomorrow."

"Oh," she said, in that way she had of saying oh.

Somewhere in the next apartment a radio was broadcasting the game. He wondered who was winning.

"Who d'you think's winning?" he said.

She looked at her rum, the ice tinkling. The drink sweating in the heat, condensation dripping down the glass and on to the bedspread. She wondered what country the wet patch looked like.

"Bet it's the damn Yankees," he said.

France, she decided. It looked like France. He'd promised to take her, but that was back when there hadn't been this wind.

"Now it's raining," he said. "First this damn wind and now rain. Maybe we'll get cool now though. Maybe we'll get some rest."

She thought about her washing on the line, her knees pulled up under the blankets like an impenetrable range of mountains, her sweating drink spreading a darkness across them.

"I wish they'd turn that damn radio down!" he said.

"You oughta go knock," she said.

"You think?" he said.

"Yes," she said, in that way she had of saying yes. The 'y' sound at the front, that 'e' after, then that 's' sound, right at the end. The finality of it.

"Oh," he said.

"Yes," she said, in a different way. She'd never had that way of saying it before.

He looked at her.

She looked away.

That dead oak tapped on the window.

She looked at him.

He looked away.

Then he got up. His body looked like his. He looked like him.

She gazed at him and thought, he looks like him.

He put on his dressing gown. He lifted a leg to put on a slipper, some knick-knacks rattling on the chest of drawers from his balancing. They rattled again for the other slipper.

Now he looks like him but in a dressing gown and slippers, she thought.

"I don't see why I have to go do it," he said. "Especially with what I have to do tomorrow –

that thing. Why can't you go knock?"

"Remind me again about tomorrow?" she said.

"You know I can't tell you. You know it won't be nearly as good as forcing you to imagine all manner of ominous things I have to do tomorrow. Why do I have to make stuff up all the damn time! What am I, a writer?"

She looked at the wall. In the lamp light she could see his shadow looming over her, breathing. The breathing quicker now.

"You should go knock," she said eventually.

"Right," he said.

He went.

He's gone, she thought.

She heard voices in the hall. She lay there thinking about yesterday, when she'd hung her washing out there clean and fresh and bright. It seemed like only yesterday.

He came back.

"What'd they say?" she said.

"They said they'd turn it off."

He took off his dressing gown. Now he looked like him taking off his dressing gown.

He got into bed.

"These sheets are awful drenched," he said.

"Sorry," she said and put her drink down on the side. It still dripped. She lay there waiting for him to touch her. She could tell by his breathing. He put a hand on her leg but just then the sound of the radio stopped.

"There," she said.

"Yes," he said and turned away, the bed sheets squelching when he moved.

She put a wet hand on him.

"Big day tomorrow," he said. "Best get some sleep."

She lay there shivering in the wet. She lay there listening to the rain on her white sheets. She lay there waiting to take her hand back, and wondering, what did he have on tomorrow?

 "Goodnight," she said. But his breathing was already leading him away, carrying him out across those rolling prairies of sleep.