Terri, unwitting literary critic, queen of my heart! I share her annoyance whenever I see a title like, “What We Talk About When We Talk About. Don’t talk like you’re drunk if you’re not drunk.” As Mel launches into an anecdote, he says, “it ought to make us ashamed when we talk like we know what we’re talking about when we talk about love.” Immediately, Terri says: “Come on, now. Mel and Terri have been together for a while, and by now, their unhappiness peeks through their heroic courtship story. In this collection’s title story, two couples discuss love and relationships over a bottle of gin. This story addresses typical Carver themes of marriage and divorce, alcoholism, despair, and the difficulty of communication.Our story begins in 1989, with the publication of Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

Mel's alcoholism, and increasing drunkenness over the course of the evening, sets a tone of increasingly intensified menace to the whole conversation. Mel and Terri, on the other hand, have been together five years, and their surface-level civility to one another barely masks a deep-seated anger and resentment. Nick and Laura are still in the glow of early love, and their behavior toward one another is affectionate and respectful. The entire action of the story takes place over the course of an evening, during which two married couples, Nick, who is also the narrator, and Laura, and Mel and Terri, sit around the kitchen table drinking gin and discussing the topic of 'real love.' The dynamics between the two couples are contrasted through their gestures and interactions with one another. Stull refer to the volume as Carver's 'minimalist masterpiece.' Meyer explains that 'the collection has been nicknamed the 'minimalist bible,' and when readers and critics consider Carver a minimalist they generally have this volume in mind.' Meyer concludes that 'because it is the volume that established Carver as a major literary figure, it has remained the collection most associated with him.' Gentry and Stull note that 'the bare-boned collection proved immensely influential on a younger generation of short-story writers coming of age in the 1980s.' Adam Meyer explains that 'this was to be the volume that would firmly establish Carver as an important writer.' The stories in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love are considered the epitome of Carver's sparse, minimalist writing style. Upon publication, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love received immediate and glowing critical acclaim, earning front page coverage in the New York Times Book Review as well as a favorable review in the New York Review of Books.

The short story 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,' by Raymond Carver, is the title story in his first volume of short fiction by a major publisher.

What we talk about when we love