Short stories
Cathedral
Raymond Carver · 1983
Synopsis
Twelve stories. A man receives his wife's blind friend at home and dreads the evening; then he draws a cathedral with his eyes closed, the blind man's hand resting on his. A baker keeps phoning the parents of a child who was run over on the morning of his birthday, about a cake that was ordered and never collected. A father crosses Europe by train to see again, in Strasbourg, a son he has not seen for years.
Context
His editor, Gordon Lish, had cut the previous collection by more than half and rewritten several texts; the author had written to him begging him not to publish the book as it stood, then gave in. For this one, he refused any cut of that scale, and the editor limited himself to touch-ups. The baker's story is the long version of an earlier text, The Bath. The original manuscripts of the previous collection appeared in 2009.
Who it is for
Twelve short stories, to be read one at a time. The language is pared down to what is strictly necessary, and what matters happens in what is left unsaid. Translated by Simone Hilling.
Prizes and reception
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1984, the collection in which his stories take on the greatest scope.
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