Books

Raymond Carver – A Writer's Life: In-depth view of Carver family's messy lives

Sklenicka gives fascinating insight into the life of someone who was determined to write

Author Carol Sklenicka describes American novelist Raymond Carver as an ‘ordinary man in every way except his talent’. Photograph: Sophie Bassouls/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images

Lucy Sweeney Byrne
Sat Oct 10 2020 - 00:00

Disclaimer: Yes, I've already covered a Raymond Carver book in this column, and a literary biography. But I make no apologies – they're worthy, and I love what I love.

Besides, I don’t think that this biography by Carol Sklenicka is suitable solely for Carver obsessives like myself. This is a skilfully written book, painstakingly researched. Sklenicka provides us with an in-depth view of the often messy and painful (yet, in other ways, decidedly suburban) lives of the Carver family.

Actually, she gives a flavour of what it was to be any lower-class family in America in the second half of the 20th century, determined to pull itself up and out. We’re shown the semi-genteel poverty people could live in then; offering rubber cheques, constantly hustling for money. (At one point, on a long cross-country drive, Maryann Carver marches into diners and, describing herself as an “expert” waitress, agrees to do three hours’ work in return for feeding the family.)

We’re given devastating insight into the effects of alcoholism, handed down through generations, as well as a wonderfully entertaining view of the American writing scene in which Carver partook; the wild parties fuelled by weed, spirits and fierce, egoistic ambition. We’re shown, through Raymond and Maryann, how even the most optimistic, most adoring of marriages, can collapse under too much slow-building pressure.

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Ultimately, though, what gives this book its most lasting fascination, is the insight provided into the life of someone who was determined, above all else, to write. One who, due to his unrelentingly stultifying situation (finances, children, background, addiction, personality), suffered terribly, and caused terrible suffering, in pursuit of that aim. It reveals to us the crippling dedication required to always, always, put writing first. We see how the effort nearly killed Carver, how it destroyed his family, yet also how it was all so worth it, for those magnificent stories.

As Sklenicka puts it, what turns out to be truly incredible about him, is the very fact that "Ray Carver was quite an ordinary man in every way except his talent."