Conference on author's Yakima youth

YAKIMA — Raymond Carver's stories of people struggling, and often failing, to negotiate life's hairpin curves have earned him a spot among America's famous scribes.

Yet few people in his hometown know that he spent his formative years in Yakima.

"Along with (U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O.) Douglas, he's probably one of the most famous people who grew up here," said Larry Fike, a philosophy instructor at Yakima Valley Community College. "I'm always very surprised at how few students know who he is."

"Carver Comes Home," a two-day conference at the college set for Jan. 30-31, will explore the influence the short-story writer and poet's Yakima childhood had on his literature.

The 15 speakers will include Carver's 45-year-old son, Vance, who says there are public misconceptions about his father's life before 1978.

That was the year Raymond Carver met Tess Gallagher, the writer he later married and remained with until his death from cancer in 1988. It was also when his previous marriage had recently ended and he'd just quit drinking.

"His years as a family man before 1978 are often depicted as dark years, as a baleful time that were hard on him, that somehow have no redeeming value," Vance Carver told the Yakima Herald-Republic. "That's only part of the story."

To set the record straight, Vance Carver is writing a memoir about his father titled "Good Times Always Come To An End: A Memoir about Raymond Carver by his son, Vance."

As conference keynote speaker on Jan. 30, he will read an excerpt from his work-in-progress, which he expects to complete this year.

"I'll probably talk about why I decided to get involved in the memoir, and talk a little about my relationship with my dad," he said.

He said he wants to make the 20 or so years of family life Raymond Carver spent with his first wife, Maryann, and their children, including Vance's older sister, Chris, part of the writer's public record.

"He had a family. He loved us, Chris and me, and he loved my mother even after their break-up. It was a mix of good and bad times," he said. "I feel a certain obligation as his son not to allow his family to be forgotten."

Both Raymond Carver and his first wife grew up in Yakima. Carver lived here from 1941 to 1958, graduating from Yakima High School (now Davis) in 1956.

His father, Clevie Raymond Carver, worked at Cascade Lumber (now Boise Cascade) as a saw filer. His mother, Ella, was a waitress and clerk.

That working-class Yakima background permeates Carver's writing, said Herb Blisard, a longtime communications instructor at Yakima Valley Community College who has taught a course on Carver for years.

"People can identify with the characters and the situations," Blisard said. "Virtually everyone in the class would say quite quickly that he or she knew somebody just like that, that they were just like Uncle Harry or their husband.

"They understood the situation — the alcoholism, the broken home life. They could comprehend the stories."

Another instructor, Mark Fuzie, who teaches English and poetry, has compiled some of Carver's writings into a one-act play, "Why Don't You Dance." The play will be performed Jan. 31 at 3:45 p.m. in Kendall Hall Auditorium.

"There are 12 recognizable stories or poems, and there are allusions to other stories," Fuzie said. "My intent was to weave a narrative out of the stories. The narrative follows a young couple as they mature, and the difficulties of maturing, how they deal with it, especially alcoholism."

The play will be performed for the general public Feb. 5-7 at 7:30 p.m. in the college's auditorium.

English instructor Dan Peters, who did his master's thesis on Carver, believes Carver's writing embodies the spirit of the West.

"It's not so much the landscape. It's more the state of mind, or state of being, of the characters, always wanting to start over again, especially by moving, going to the next frontier," Peters said. "When there's no other place to move, this desire to go to new places becomes self-defeating in lots of ways."

Because his father used his own life and family as grist for his stories, Vance Carver said it's made writing the memoir difficult. "Some of it is painful, it cuts close to the bone, but I felt I had to do it," he said.

One story, "The Compartment," is based on a trip that he and his father once took to Paris.

"He then took that positive experience and developed it into a particularly dark, Carveresque experience between father and son," Vance Carver said. "It hurt my feelings. Still, it is one of his better stories, but I want people to know the truth, that our relationship was not always like that."