WILL YOU PLEASE BE QUIET, PLEASE? ...

WILL YOU PLEASE BE QUIET, PLEASE? by Raymond Carver (Vintage: $10.). Originally published in 1976, this first collection of short stories helped to establish Raymond Carver’s reputation as one of the country’s foremost fiction writers. These brief tales focus on frightened little individuals who anxiously stare at other people who seem more alive. A middle-class husband and wife examine a vacationing couple’s apartment, hoping to divine the secret of their more interesting existence in “Neighbors.” Carver’s skills as a writer enable him to describe these tiny fragments of inconsequential lives in ways that make them seem interesting.