Carving Up Carver

Raymond Carver was deeply bothered by the fame his stories brought him because his editor, Gordon Lish, had written such dramatic improvements to them. “Mr. Lish, working at Knopf, took the stories that Carver sent him and he hacked away at them, mercilessly. He liked the stories as they were, no doubt, but he saw something else in them as well, something harder and more pure. He saw the power in Carver’s natural restraint and he wanted to push it to the very limit.”