What Carver does here puts me in mind of one of those popularly imagined martial artists who, through the subtlest positioning and alteration of balance, dispatches his charging opponent. By that I suppose I mean I’m very struck by the minimalism here, the mastery of craft, the role given to the reader – also the sheer impact. It really, really gets me, this one.
First published, in an earlier form, in Quarterly West in 1978, and then, in the form I’m familiar with, in The Paris Reviewin 1981. First collected the same year in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and then in Where I’m Calling From, Atlanticm 1988/Harvill, 1993. The story’s available to Paris Review subscribers on their website
A Personal Anthology 