carolyn kellogg

My workshop teacher this term, Chuck Kinder, started us off with two packets of Raymond Carver readings. As Chuck isn’t just a Carver fan — he was also a good friend — the materials included several pieces about Carver, plus two of his stories (“Cathedral” and “Fires”).

In an Esquire piece written after Carver’s death, Tobias Wolff recounts several up-close-and-personal Ray Carver stories. In one, Wolff, in an effort to impress Carver, resorts to telling a tall tale. First he swears him to secrecy, then:

There’s that old excuse we give for saying what we shouldn’t. The words walked right out of my mouth. Well, these were the words that walked out of my mouth, and I watched them with complete surprise and horror: “Ray, I used to be a heroin addict.”

Wolff says he couldn’t help himself, and went on to describe all sorts of heroin-addict adventures. In subsequent days the lie weighed on him; eventually he told Carver the truth. That he’d made up the heroin addict story. Carver wasn’t mad — but he hadn’t kept it secret, either. In fact, he’d told a bunch of people. Cue gales of laughter.

Chuck also gave us a confidential excerpt from what I think is a Carver biography. It focuses on the years Carver was in Palo Alto, when he and Chuck became friends.

It was wild times. Chuck had the party house. Carver had a wife and a mistress. Eventually, Carver’s mistress married Chuck. (And she’s really nice). Chuck wrote about this period in his book Honeymooners.

It would be disingenuous to say that Honeymooners is not about Ray and myself. Everything in there is pretty factual, except what I’d do is I’d crunch situations or times that are pretty similar. They’re not utterly journalistic, but they are factual, and emotionally they are really true.

Fiction writers, like Chuck Kinder and Raymond Carver, tell the truth but tell it slant. Chuck shows us that the slant can make all the difference by including “The Harvest” in the packet; here, Tess Gallagher (Carver’s last wife) does her own take on the blind man’s visit that’s the heart of Carver’s “Cathedral.” It’s clear that actual events sparked the story, but it would be hard to outdo “Cathedral.” Gallagher doesn’t — her version of the story may be more true, but it’s not nearly as affecting. She writes about a blind man’s visit; Carver’s story, full of sloth and malice, winds up with a beautiful moment of creation and communication. I’d rather read Carver’s lie.

In the July 2 edition of the New Yorker, Margaret Talbot writes about brain scans and lying. The idea is that brain scans could provide an true and complete polygraph. Imagine if you could stick Phil Spector in an MRI machine, ask him “Did you shoot Lana Clarkson?” look at his brain activity and know for certain if his answer was a lie.

There are many issues with this, though, and Talbot does a fine, funny job outlining them. So far, most research has involved just one kind of person (willing, cooperative students). It doesn’t include someone whose answer may mean death row and tries, desperately, to trick the machine. It doesn’t take into account delusion — what if Phil Spector did shoot Lana Clarkson, but he’s convinced himself he’s not responsible? Finally — and more to the point — there’s this:

In fact, many liars experience what deception researchers call “duping delight.”

And that’s the heart of the matter, isn’t it? Fiction writers have heightened cases of duping delight. Sure, it takes a while before someone reads your fiction, so there’s a bit of delayed gratification. But I imagine many writers would agree to feeling delight at getting a story just right. Giggles, whoops. Duping delight.

Tobias Wolff’s “The Liar,” which we also read this week, is about a kid who can’t stop lying — in writing. The way I figure it, Chuck wants us to be a big bunch of liars. Delighted, that is.