Short Story Book Club Raymond Carver's "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?"

117 S. Pineapple Ave.,Sarasota FL 34236

04 November, 2022

Description

In this monthly book club dedicated to reading collections of short stories, November's pick is literary great Raymond Carver's first collection: Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? Carver breathed new life into the American short story with his signature pared-down style. He shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are classics of our time. The benefit of our Short Story Book Club: If you only read one or two of the stories, you can still meaningfully participate and not worry about spoiling a book you're only halfway through. If you're not wild about one short story between the covers, chances are that you'll find at least one with which you'll fall in love. We will meet in person at our new store location at 117 S. Pineapple Ave. The book club is $17 which includes your copy of Will You Please be Quite, Please? to be picked up at Bookstore1 anytime before our meeting. About Will You Please be Quite, Please?In most of these stories, the objects of Raymond Carver's close attention are men and women out of work, or between jobs, at loose ends, confused and often terrified. If they are kids, they play hooky. Husbands and wives lie beside each other in bed, touch cautiously, retreat, feign sleep, lie, each bewildered by what has just happened and by what might happen next. The stories themselves are not at all confused; they have been carefully shaped, shorn of ornamentation and directed away from anything that might mislead. They are brief stories but by no means stark: they imply complexities of action and motive and they are especially artful in their suggestion of repressed violence. About the author: Poet and short story writer Raymond Carver was born in the logging town of Clatskanie, Oregon, and grew up in Yakima, Washington. He was married and the father of two before he was 20, and he held a number of low-paying jobs: he "picked tulips, pumped gas, swept hospital corridors, swabbed toilets, and managed an apartment complex," according to Bruce Weber in a New York Times Magazine profile of the author. Carver attended Chico State University, where he studied with John Gardner, and earned his BA from Humboldt State College in 1963. He published his first short story and poem while at Humboldt State. Carver went on to attend the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Returning to the Northwest, he took jobs as a janitor, farm worker, and delivery man. His first wife, Maryann Burk, also held a series of jobs to support Carver as he began writing and eventually publishing acclaimed short story collections such as Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (1976), What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981), and Cathedral (1983). Carver also published poetry collections, including A New Path to the Waterfall (1989), which was published posthumously. .......................................................................... All signed up and unable to go? Please let us know! Seating is limited and there may be people on our waitlist who would like to to take your place. Please send an email to [email protected] ASAP and hopefully we'll see you next time. Click here to go to the Bookstore1Sarasota website.