Life, always life

Raymond Carver, the writer of calmly desperate introspective domestic realism, emerged in the mid-1970s as a literary bridge between the traditionalists and the absurdist experimentalists. He died 12 years ago this week; his work did not. Handsome collected editions will continue to appear from time to time. There have already been a couple of "last" books. Elephant, published a few months before his death, contains seven fine stories, one of which - "Errand", a dramatic reconstruction of the final hours in the life of Chekhov - could be his finest.

Curiously, it is also his least typical. But whatever the Carver story under scrutiny, make no mistake about it, his reflective, colloquial voice with its equal measures of wonder and candid regret is unmistakable. Just as he has influenced a generation of writers, Carver has also shaped a generation of readers, who recognise in him a plain-speaking domestic philosopher who communicates through a series of narrators, each pondering the mess they have made of their lives. Carver's all-too-human world is that of the lost people who, at best, spend their days sitting in front of the television waiting for something to happen or, at worst, trying to figure out what happened to their lives, or maybe just what happened. There is an honesty about his work. There is also humanity. No, not the funniest of writers, but one without tricks. Nothing fancy, only the real; as he learnt from his hero Chekhov, "Life, always life".

The discovery of five previously unpublished new stories by any writer is exciting, and such is Carver's appeal that, in his case, it is a cause for celebration. Call If You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Prose might well send readers racing off to the local bookstore. But as many a Carver character might say, hold on a minute. That subtitle is misleading. Readers of Granta: No 68 will have already read the title story - certainly the strongest of the newly-discovered quintet. Aside from that, as a Carver fan myself, I feel it is only fair to alert excited readers that the rest of the material gathered in this new book has already been published in a posthumous collection, No Heroics, Please (1991).

That book is a volume of uncollected prose, essays and reviews. It also contains five early stories, a fragment of a novel and 19 poems. Call If You Need Me is the same except for the five "new" stories, for which the poems have been omitted. Then as now, much of the non-fiction confirms that Carver was a kindly, generous reviewer who often sounded more like a caring uncle than a critic. If he did nothing as a reader but urge people to revere Chekhov as he did, he urged well. There are two fine pieces, one on Sherwood Anderson's Collected Letters, the other on Jeffrey Meyer's kamikaze-like biography of Hemingway. Carver's dismissal of Meyers is stern but gracious, and the result is an intelligent reappraisal of Hemingway as man and monster as well as writer. Both articles are well worth re-reading. There is also a fair-minded rebuke to writer Richard Brautigan and a piece about Jim Harrison which should encourage readers to a fine contemporary US writer.

Personally I have no problem re-reading Carver - I do anyway - but it is strange to be re-reviewing his non-fiction. I don't understand why Harvill chose not to credit the non-fiction as having been previously published in No Heroics, Please. Or why not just re-publish No Heroics, Please? Tess Gallagher, the poet and writer, Carver's widow, makes a passing reference to the earlier book in her introduction, while William Stull, editor of the new book, writes in his preface, "Like its predecessor No Heroics, Please (1991), Call If You Need Me includes all the non-fiction left uncollected at the time of Raymond Carver's death." There are also four pieces from Fires (1983, 1989); surely that means they were not "uncollected", as they had already appeared in a collection? Fact is, though, this new book is really about bringing to print five stories which Carver had chosen not to publish in his lifetime - always a difficult moral decision for those left behind when a writer dies.

It is hard to say goodbye to Carver. Readers won't. On one level the discovery of the five stories is great news. On another it is unsettling. No writer was more committed to re-writing than Carver, who tirelessly crafted his work. In fairness to him, it is impossible not to approach these stories without feeling like an intruder, sneaking a glance over his shoulder. So far, so uncomfortable. Three of the five are about first marriages breaking up, or rather, not so much breaking up as dissolving away into nothing. At best these discovered stories offer echoes of his finer, completed stories.

The title story is the strongest. In it, a couple with a grown son are preparing to give their dying marriage one final shot. "Are you and Mom going to get a divorce?" asks the boy. "Not if we can help it," replies the narrator. Despite the optimism, it does not look too good. The story begins, "We had both been involved with other people that spring . . . " Another, "Kindling", draws on a familiar Carver theme, that of a man trying to start over. Myers, who is "between lives" - having "just spent 28 days at a drying-out facility" - has been thrown out by his wife. He answers an ad offering a room for rent. He is also a writer limited, at present, to one sentence, "Emptiness is the beginning of all things". His deliberate search for a new meaning is well handled, but the story's success lies in the characterisation of the couple renting the room. The wife in particular, herself an aspiring writer, is a study in suspicion and curiosity.

Carver's pared-down style always creates vivid pictures. For all its famous brevity, detail is central. "Pete's daughter, Leslie, a thin blond woman who'd never acted very friendly, lived in a smaller house nearby that also belonged to Pete." Elsewhere, a narrator's wife is described as "sitting there thinking about her dream". None of the new stories will challenge the best of Carver, but of course it is interesting to have the chance to read anything by him. The same five early stories, including his first published short story, "Furious Seasons", and novel fragment are also re-published here - and it is almost heartening to see that even Raymond Carver could write so poorly.

Shortly before he died Carver made his own selection from his work, and the 37 stories in Where I'm Calling From, which includes "Are These Actual Miles?", "So Much Water So Close to Home", "A Small Good Thing", the title story, "Where I'm Calling From", "Feathers" - in which a couple visit a work friend's home and meet a fantastically ugly new baby "so pop-eyed it was like it was plugged into something" - "Cathedral" and the wonderful swan song, "Errand", constitute a legacy which will last. In her introduction Tess Gallagher presents this new book as a chance to hear again Carver's voice. That voice is more than secure in the best of his stories, which continue to speak.

Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times