book-drama

What We Talk About When We Talk About Authorial Intent

Emily Gould · 10/17/07 09:10AM

You know how all Raymond Carver's short stories are like, "We sat in the kitchen. It was raining. I poured another scotch. I drank it. She sat on the chair, drinking. We drank together a while"? Apparently they weren't always so minimalist. In fact, according to Raymond's widow Tess Gallagher, they were downright "expansive" before his editor Gordon Lish got hold of them, radically cutting them and in some instances changing their titles and endings. And in a recently-unearthed letter, Raymond seems to plead for Gordon to stop publication of the altered book. So Tess wants to bring out an alternate edition of "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" that contains the unedited stories. Is this a terrible, terrible idea?