All of Us (46 page)
Authors: Raymond Carver
2
BEGINNINGS
:
1st
in
Grande Ronde Review
[La Grange: Oreg.] 1.4—5 (n.d. [1965—6]): n. pag. [18]; in
NK
[12],
ANTSM
17,
NHP
76.
| 8 | Ranier / Ranier NK |
3
ON THE PAMPAS TONIGHT
:
1st
in
Levee
[Sacramento State Univ.] 2.2 (Jan. 1967): n. pag. [8]; in
TD
4,
NHP
94.
4
THOSE DAYS
:
1st
in
Poet and Critic
[Iowa State Univ.] 2.3 (Spring 1966): 6; in
TD
3,
NHP
93. The dedicatee (“C.M.”) has not been identified. In
1st
RC’s assigned critics are Paul Baker Newman and S. L. Friedman.
5
THE SUNBATHER, TO HERSELF
:
1st
in
West Coast Review
[Simon Fraser Univ.] 2.1 (Spring 1967): 23; in
TD
8,
NHP
98.
6
NO HEROICS, PLEASE
:
1st
in
December
[Highland Park, Ill.] 9.2—3 (1967): 64; in
TD
12,
NHP
99.
7
ADULTERY
:
1st
in
December
[Highland Park, Ill.] 9.2—3 (1967): 65;
WI
52—3,
NHP
80—1.
8
POEM ON MY BIRTHDAY, JULY
2:
1st
in
Grande Ronde Review
[Folsom, Calif.] 7 [2.1] (n.d. [1967]): 7—8; in
TD
5—6,
NHP
95—6.
9
RETURN
:
1st
in
Grande Ronde Review
[Sacramento, Calif.] 7 [2.1] (n.d. [1967]): 9; in
TD
7,
NHP
97.
10
FOR THE EGYPTIAN COIN TODAY, ARDEN, THANK YOU
:
1st
in
Kayak
[Santa Cruz, Calif.] 16 (1968): 51; in
WI
37,
NHP
82.
11
IN THE TRENCHES WITH ROBERT GRAVES
: in
NK
[30],
ANTSM
26,
NHP
77.
Subtitle: “[After reading
Goodbye to All That
]”
ANTSM
12
THE MAN OUTSIDE
: in
NK
[31—2],
NHP
78—9.
13
SEEDS
:
1st
in
University of Portland Review
[Portland, Oreg.] 22.1 (Spring 1970): 38; in
WI
47,
NHP
83. The dedicatee is RC’s daughter, Christine LaRae Carver.
14
BETRAYAL
: in
WI
12,
NHP
84.
15
THE CONTACT
: in
WI
22,
NHP
85.
16
SOMETHING IS HAPPENING
: in
WI
48,
NHP
86—7.
17
A SUMMER IN SACRAMENTO
: in
ANTSM
42—3,
NHP
88—90.
18
REACHING
: separately published with “Soda Crackers” (below) as
Two Poems
, a holiday greeting card (Concord, NH: William B. Ewert, 1986); in
NHP
91.
19
SODA CRACKERS
: separately published with “Reaching” (above) as
Two Poems
, a holiday greeting card (Concord, NH: William B. Ewert, 1986); in
NHP
92.
Chronology
| 1938 | Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr., born in Clatskanie, Oregon, on 25 May, first child of Clevie Raymond (“C.R.”) Carver (b. 17 September 1913 in Leola, Arkansas) and Ella Beatrice Casey (b. 11 July 1913 in Malvern, Arkansas). |
| 1941 | The Carvers move to Yakima, Washington. C.R. works for the Boise Cascade Lumber Company. |
| 1943 | RC’s only sibling, James Carver, born in Yakima on 5 August. |
| 1956 | RC graduates from Yakima High School in June. He and his mother then follow C.R. to Chester, California, where RC and his father both work in a sawmill. In November, RC returns alone to Yakima. |
| 1957 | In February, C.R. suffers a mental and physical breakdown that keeps him unemployed until 1964. On 7 June RC marries sixteen-year-old Maryann Burk in Yakima, where he works as a pharmacy deliveryman. Their daughter Christine LaRae born on 2 December. RC takes classes at Yakima Community College during 1957—8 academic year. |
| 1958 | In August, RC moves his wife, daughter, and in-laws to Paradise, California, where he enters nearby Chico State College as a part-time student. His son, Vance Lindsay, born on 19 October. |
| 1959 | In June, the Carvers move to Chico, California. In the fall, RC takes Creative Writing 101, taught by John Gardner. |
| 1960 | During the spring semester, RC founds and edits the first issue of the Chico State literary magazine, Selection. In June, the Carvers move to Eureka, California, where RC works in the Georgia-Pacific sawmill. In the fall, he transfers to Humboldt State College in nearby Arcata and begins taking classes taught by Richard Cortez Day. |
| 1961 | RC’s first published story, “The Furious Seasons”, appears in Selection 2 (Winter 1960—1). A second story, “The Father”, appears in the spring issue of the Humboldt State literary magazine, Toyon. In June, the Carvers move to Arcata, California. |
| 1962 | RC’s first play, Carnations , is performed at Humboldt State College on 11 May. His first published poem, “The Brass Ring”, appears in the September issue of Targets. |
| 1963 | In February, RC receives his A.B. degree from Humboldt State. During the spring, he edits Toyon. RC receives a $500 fellowship for a year’s graduate study at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. After spending the summer in Berkeley, where RC works in the University of California library, the Carvers move to Iowa City, Iowa. |
| 1964—6 | In June 1964, the Carvers return to California and settle in Sacramento, where RC is hired as a day custodian at Mercy Hospital. After one year, he transfers to the night shift. In the fall of 1966, RC joins a poetry workshop led by Dennis Schmitz at Sacramento State College. |
| 1967 | The Carvers file for bankruptcy in the spring. Clevie Raymond Carver dies on 17 June. On 31 July RC is hired as a textbook editor at Science Research Associates (SRA). In August, the Carvers move to Palo Alto, California, where RC meets the editor and writer Gordon Lish. RC’s story “Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?” is included in The Best American Short Stories 1967. |
| 1968—9 | In the spring of 1968, RC’s first book, Near Klamath (poems), is published by the English Club of Sacramento State College. Maryann Carver receives a one-year scholarship to Tel-Aviv University, and RC takes a year’s leave of absence from SRA. The Carvers move to Israel in June but return to California in October. From November 1968 until February 1969 they live with relatives in Hollywood, where RC sells movie theater programs. In February, he is rehired by SRA as “advertising director”, and the Carvers move to San Jose, California. RC’s period of increasingly heavy drinking begins. |
| 1970 | RC receives a National Endowment for the Arts Discovery Award for poetry. In June, the Carvers move to Sunnyvale, California. RC’s story “Sixty Acres” is included in The Best Little Magazine Fiction, 1970 , and his first regularly published book, Winter Insomnia (poems), is issued by Kayak Books. On 25 September, RC’s job at SRA is terminated. Severance pay and unemployment benefits allow him to write full-time for nearly a year. |
| 1971 | Gordon Lish, now fiction editor of Esquire , publishes RC’s story “Neighbors” in the magazine’s June issue. RC is appointed visiting lecturer in creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for 1971—2, and in August the Carvers move to Ben Lomond, California. RC’s story “Fat” appears in the September issue of Harper’s Bazaar. |
| 1972 | RC receives a Wallace E. Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University for 1972—3 and a concurrent appointment as visiting lecturer in fiction writing at UC Berkeley. In July, the Carvers buy a house in Cupertino, California. |
| 1973 | RC is appointed a visiting lecturer at the Iowa Writers’Workshop for 1973—4. His story “What Is It?” is included in the O. Henry Awards annual, Prize Stories 1973 , and five of his poems are reprinted in New Voices in American Poetry. |
| 1974 | RC is appointed visiting lecturer at UC Santa Barbara for 1974—5. Alcoholism and family problems force him to resign in December, and the Carvers subsequently file for their second bankruptcy. Unemployed, RC returns to Cupertino, California. He remains there with his family for the next two years, during which he does little writing. |
| 1976 | At Night the Salmon Move , RC’s third book of poetry, is published by Capra Press in February. In March, his first major-press book, the short-story collection Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? is published by McGraw-Hill under its Gordon Lish imprint. Between October 1976 and January 1977, RC undergoes four hospitalizations for acute alcoholism. The Carvers’ house in Cupertino is sold in October, and RC and his wife live apart. |
| 1977 | Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? receives a National Book Award nomination. RC moves alone to McKinleyville, California, and on 2 June he stops drinking. Reunited with his wife, he continues living in McKinleyville through the year. In November, Furious Seasons and Other Stories is published by Capra Press. That month, at a writers’ conference in Dallas, Texas, RC meets the poet Tess Gallagher. |
| 1978 | RC receives a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and from March through June, he and his wife live together on a trial basis in Iowa City. They separate in July, with RC leaving for the University of Texas, El Paso, where he has been appointed visiting distinguished writer in residence for 1978—9. In August, he meets Tess Gallagher for the second time, and the two writers begin their close association. RC’s book reviews begin appearing in the Chicago Tribune, Texas Monthly , and the San Francisco Review of Books. |
| 1979 | On 1 January, RC and Tess Gallagher begin living together in El Paso. They spend the summer in Chimacum, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula, near Gallagher’s home town of Port Angeles. In September, RC and Gallagher move to Tucson, where she teaches at the University of Arizona. RC is appointed Professor of English at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. He defers the appointment for one year in order to draw on his Guggenheim Fellowship and write. |
| 1980 | RC receives a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for fiction. Because of an unexpected retirement at Syracuse, he begins teaching in January, one semester earlier than planned. From May through August, RC and Gallagher live in a borrowed cabin near Port Angeles. In September, the two move to Syracuse, where Gallagher joins the University as Coordinator of the Creative Writing Program. RC and Gallagher jointly purchase a house in Syracuse. |
| 1981 | RC and Gallagher continue their routine of teaching in Syracuse from September to May and summering near Port Angeles. RC’s second major-press story collection, What We Talk about When We Talk about Love , edited by Gordon Lish, is published by Knopf on 20 April. RC makes his first appearance in the New Yorker with the story “Chef’s House”, published on 30 November. Thereafter, he becomes a frequent contributor to the magazine. |
| 1982 | During the summer, Gallagher is invited to teach at the University of Zürich, and RC accompanies her to Switzerland. Guest editor John Gardner includes “Cathedral” in The Best American Short Stories 1982. (Gardner dies in a motorcycle accident on 14 September.) RC and his wife, separated since July 1978, are legally divorced on 18 October. |
| 1983 | Capra Press publishes Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories on 14 April. On 18 May, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters awards RC and Cynthia Ozick its first Mildred and Harold Strauss Livings: renewable five-year fellowships that carry annual tax-free stipends of $35,000. (Recipients are chosen by a jury of writers who are members of the Academy: Donald Barthelme, Irving Howe, Philip Roth, and Elizabeth Hardwick.) As a condition of the award, RC resigns his professorship at Syracuse. RC’s third major book of stories, Cathedral , is published by Knopf on 15 September. On 12 December, it receives a National Book Critics Circle Award nomination. |
| 1984 | In January, to escape East Coast publicity, RC flies to Port Angeles. Living alone in Sky House, he writes poetry during the day and occasional nonfiction during the evening. In the summer, he and Gallagher make a reading tour of Brazil and Argentina for the US Information Service. In the fall, they return to Syracuse, where Gallagher arranges to teach only one semester each year. Cathedral receives a Pulitzer Prize nomination. |
| 1985 | Five of RC’s poems appear in the February issue of Poetry (Chicago). Thereafter, he becomes a frequent contributor. Random House publishes RC’s poetry collection Where Water Comes Together with Other Water on 1 May. RC and Gallagher travel to England, where Fires and The Stories of Raymond Carver are published on 16 May, and to the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, where he meets many poets. In November, RC receives Poetry magazine’s Levinson Prize. |
| 1986 | RC serves as guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 1986. Random House publishes his poetry collection Ultramarine on 7 November. In the winter he travels to Australia. |
| 1987 | “Errand”, RC’s last published story, appears in the NewYorker on 1 June. From April to July, RC and Gallagher travel in England, Scotland, and continental Europe, visiting Paris, Wiesbaden, Zürich, Rome, and Milan. In London, Collins Harvill publishes In a Marine Light , a selection of poems from Where Water Comes Together with Other Water and Ultramarine , on 1 June. In September, RC experiences pulmonary hemorrhages, and on 1 October doctors in Syracuse remove two-thirds of his cancerous left lung. |
| 1988 | In March, RC’s cancer reappears. During April and May, he undergoes a seven-week course of full-brain radiation treatments in Seattle. Where I’m Calling From , a major collection of his new and selected stories, is published in May by Atlantic Monthly Press. On 18 May, he is inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Shortly afterward, cancer reappears in RC’s lungs. He and Gallagher marry in Reno, Nevada, on 17 June. Working together, they assemble A New Path to the Waterfall , and in July they make a fishing trip to Alaska. After a brief stay in Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, RC dies at his new house in Port Angeles on 2 August at 6:20 a.m. |
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