It's impossible to ignore Carver's immense talent. He succeeds, seemingly without effort, in weaving the illusion that his characters are not only real but representative; singularly average, we might call them. Carver's laconic, unadonerd style equips him perfectly to conjure up these marginal lives of quiet desperation... He sets a plot in motion with astonishing speed, and his ear for dialogue and colloquial narration is flawless.
