what we talk about when we talk about love by raymond carver

He dragged me around the living room by my ankles. Then Terri she said, “He beat me up one night, the last night we lived together. Terri said the man she lived with before she lived with Mel Herb loved her so much he tried to kill her. He He’d left the Church at the same time, but he said he still looked back on to those years in the seminary as the most important in his life. He said When he was young he’d spent five years in a seminary before quitting to go to medical school. Mel Herb thought real love was nothing less than spiritual love. The gin and the tonic water kept going around, and we somehow got on the subject of love. There were Mel Herb and me I and his second wife, Teresa-Terri, we called her-and my wife, Laura. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. ¶ The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist, and sometimes that gives him the right. My friend Mel Herb McGinnis, a cardiologist, was talking. In the sample that follows, strike-throughs are deletions and boldfaced words are Lish’s additions.

It’s a fascinating look at the Carver-Lish writing experience. A few years ago The New Yorker published an early draft of Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” which was originally titled “Beginners.” The New Yorker simultaneously published a version of the story showing Gordon Lish’s edits. Boy oh boy this is great (yes, I am that kind of nerd).

What we talk about when we talk about love by raymond carver