Appendix A

Excerpt from letter written by Raymond Carver to Gordon Lish

July 8, 8 a.m.

Dearest Gordon,
I’ve got to pull out of this one. Please hear me. I’ve been up all night thinking on this, and nothing but this, so help me. I’ve looked at it from every side, I’ve compared both versions of the edited mss—the first one is better, I truly believe, if some things are carried over from the second to the first— until my eyes are nearly to fall out of my head. You are a wonder, a genius, and there’s no doubt of that, better than any two of Max Perkins, etc. etc. And I’m not unmindful of the fact of my immense debt to you, a debt I can simply never, never repay. This whole life I have, so many of the friends I now have, this job up here, everything, I owe to you for WILL YOU PLEASE. You’ve given me some degree of immortality already.

…

But I haven’t written a word since I gave you the collection, waiting for your reaction, that reaction means so much to me. Now, I’m afraid, mortally afraid, I feel it, that if the book were to be published as it is in its present edited form, I may never write another story, that’s how closely, God Forbid, some of those stories are to my sense of regaining my health and mental well-being. As I say, maybe if I had 18 months or two years, some distance from these pieces and a good deal more writing under my belt, I could and would go with it. Likely so. But I can’t now. I just can’t, I don’t know what to say.

Please help me with this, Gordon. I feel as if this is the most important decision I’ve ever been faced with, no shit. I ask for your understanding. Next to my wife, and now Tess, you have been and are the most important individual in my life, and that’s the truth. I don’t want to lose your love or regard over this, oh God no. It would be like having a part of myself die, a spiritual part. Jesus, I’m jabbering now. But if this causes you undue complication and grief and you perhaps understandably become pissed and discouraged with me, well, I’m the poorer for it, and my life will not be the same again. True. On the other hand, if the book comes out and I can’t feel the kind of pride and pleasure in it that I want, if I feel I’ve somehow too far stepped out of bounds, crossed that line a little too far, why then I can’t feel good about myself, or maybe even write again; right now I feel it’s that serious, and if I can’t feel absolutely good about it, I feel I’d be done for. I do.

…

As I say, I’m confused, tired, paranoid, and afraid, yes, of the consequences for me if the collection came out in its present form. So help me, please, yet again. Don’t, please, make this too hard for me, for I’m just likely to start coming unraveled knowing how I’ve displease and disappointed you. God almighty, Gordon.

Ray (signed)

Please do the necessary things to stop production of the book. Please try and forgive me, this breach.