Does everyone want a piece of Raymond Carver?
It seems that the much-theorised “death of the author” hasn’t protected him from posthumous attacks. When you read about these battles, you wonder whether they are not serial acts of appropriation. Even Carver’s first wife has written a memoir, in which she writes of the early stories composed while she was married to Carver in a protective vein, saying she felt angry about Lish’s changes. “I must say, as the first reader, I resented it when Lish boldly changed the title.” (She also reports that Lish told her she could only help Carver by releasing him from the bonds of family life.) It all depends on what you think a “normal” relationship between a writer and an editor would be, what a “normal” marriage would be. Is there ever such a thing? For her part, Gallagher describes her relationship with Carver as “collaborative”. She helped him, and it was reciprocal. She began to write short stories after she met him; he wrote more poems. She believes that had he lived, they would have carri
