In their terse objectivity as well as subject matter (fathers and sons, marriages at impasse, Indians, boys fishing, insomniacs) … [the stories in Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?] suggest Carver as a descendent of Hemingway, relocated in the Pacific Northwest. But where Hemingway's purified style was meant to imply volumes of unspoken knowledge, like the seven-eighths of an iceberg underwater, Carver's method suggests that the other seven-eighths either isn't there or isn't knowable.

Carver is expert at describing various types of emotional parasitism. "Neighbors" is about the Millers who envy their interesting, much-travelled neighbors. Asked to feed the cat while their friends are away, the Millers begin spending time furtively across the hall, trying on clothes, lying in the bed, using the bathroom—and it all proves powerfully erotic. In "The Idea" another couple watches a neighbor stealing out to spy on his own wife as she undresses...