Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
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| Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? | |
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| Author | Raymond Carver |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Short stories |
| Publisher | McGraw-Hill |
| Publication date | February 22, 1976 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, published in 1976, was the first short-story collection by American writer Raymond Carver. This minimalist collection revolves around themes of segregation and disenchantment in American families.
[edit] Titles and summaries of the book's 22 stories
1. “Fat” . A waitress serves a fat man and is moved by the experience
2. “Neighbors”. A couple house-sitting for neighbors are gradually taking over their neighbors’ lives. They begin to enjoy the feeling of voyeurism and begin to hope: One says, “Maybe they won’t come back.”
3. “The Idea”. A couple spies on a man who spies on his own wife from his garden.
4*. “They’re Not your Husband”. An out of work salesman makes his waitress wife diet when he realises that other men think she’s fat.
5. “Are you a Doctor?”. A woman calls a doctor by accident, it’s a wrong number. She begs him to meet her and he does.
6. “The Father”. A mother and grandfather and daughter discuss the new baby’s features. “But who does Daddy look like?”
7. “Nobody Said Anything”. A boy tries to impress his parents, who are always fighting, by catching a big fish.
8. “Sixty Acres”. A Native American accosts two young kids shooting ducks on his land. He lets them go. He decides to lease some of his land.
9. “What’s in Alaska?”. Two couples get stoned one evening.
10. “Night School”. A man is out of work and living with his parents. He meets two women in a bar and tells them. “I’d say you’re kind of old for that.”
11*. “Collectors”. A vacuum salesman demonstrator shows up at the house of an unemployed man. He pointlessly goes through his sales patter.
12. “What do you do in San Francisco?”. A postman observes the young couple who move in next door. They seem to break up quite quickly.
13. “The Student’s Wife”. A night of insomnia.
14. “Put yourself in my Shoes”. Coming back from an office party, a couple are interrogated and insulted in a strange meeting with their landlord and his wife.
15*. “Jerry and Molly and Sam”. A man is driven crazy by the family dog and decides to get rid of it by dumping it on the edge of town. He soon changes his mind.
16. “Why Honey?”. Letter from the mother of an apparently pathological liar who has become President of the United States. “I should be proud but I am afraid.”
17. “The Ducks”. At work the foreman suddenly dies, so everyone is sent home. At home one man fails to use the opportunity to have sex with his wife.
18. “How About This?”. A couple come to look at her father’s deserted place in the country. Maybe they will move there.
19*. “Bicycles, muscles, Cigarettes”. A man quits smoking. He calls round to the house of a friend of his son where a dispute is in progress over a missing bike. He and the accused boy’s father have a fight.
20. “Are These Actual Miles?”. An unemployed man’s wife goes out to sell their car and doesn’t return until dawn.
21. “Signals”. A couple in a flashy restaurant seems to be trying to find out if they still have a future together. “I don’t mind admitting I’m just a lowbrow.”
22. “Will you please be quiet please?”. The story of Ralph and Marian, two students who marry and become teachers. Ralph becomes obsessed with the idea that Marian was unfaithful to him once in the past. Ralph gets drunk and feels his whole life changing once he finds out the truth.
