Short Story Collections, Part 2: The Short Stories of Raymond Carver

About this course:

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a 1981 collection of short stories by American writer Raymond Carver. Considered by many one of American literature's most ambitious short-story collections, it was this collection that turned Raymond Carver into a household name in the publishing industry. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1984, the story collection is a haunting, culturally telling meditation on love, loss, and companionship. In addition to ten of the stories in the collection, including “Why Don’t You Dance?” and “I Could See the Smallest Things,” we read the story that gives the collection its title, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” a story characterized by the bare-bones prose style for which Carver became famous. Suggested book: Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.