Raymond Carver's stories are marvels of … "completion"—the foreknowledge of nakedness—of which Cynthia Ozick speaks. Carver's stories are very short and naked, proving that it's usually better to say too little than a little too much, and also that endings matter more than beginnings.

His stories [in Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?] in fact begin flatly, with no effort to engage the reader in anything more than plain statements about perfectly plain lives…. This is a world whose people worry about whether their old cars will start, where unemployment or personal bankruptcy are present dangers, where a good time consists of smoking pot with the neighbors, with a little cream soda and M&M's on the side, Carver's characters are waitresses, mechanics, postmen, high school teachers, factory workers, door-to-door salesmen. They live in the Pacific Northwest, not for them a still unspoiled scenic wonderland but a...