Plot Summary
Beginners
Raymond Carver
Beginners
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1981
Plot Summary
Beginners is a short story collection published posthumously in 2009 by American author and poet Raymond Carver. It includes the unedited manuscript versions of stories Carver first published in 1981 in the collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.
The book contains seventeen stories. The first, "Why Don't You Dance?", concerns a young couple who buys furniture from a yard sale conducted by a drunk. The drunk appears to be selling all of his possessions. After putting music on, the drunk asks the couple to dance with him. Later, the young woman mocks the man to her friends. In "Viewfinder," the narrator encounters a man with a hook for a hand. The hooked man sells the narrator a photograph of his own house.
"Where is Everyone?" was originally titled "Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit" by Carver's editor. Three years ago, the narrator was disturbed by the sight of his elderly widowed mother kissing a man on his sofa. The narrator's wife, Myrna, falls in love with Ross, a man she meets at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Reflecting on the death of his father, the narrator asks Myrna to hug him before sharing a nice dinner with him. Myrna is not enthusiastic about this. "Gazebo" is about a pair of married motel managers. After cheating on his wife, Holly, with the cleaning lady, Juanita, Duane seeks to persuade Holly that they can rebuild their trust and reinforce their love for one another. Holly disagrees.
"Want to See Something" was originally titled "I Could See the Smallest Things." In the middle of the night, Nancy wakes up and goes outside to investigate a noise, leaving her drunken, snoring husband Cliff in bed. Outside, Nancy's widowed neighbor, Sam, spreads insecticide on his garden to kill slugs. Sam and Cliff were once friends, but something came between them. "The Fling," originally titled "Sacks," concerns a textbook salesman named Les who recalls his parents' divorce. His father cheated on his mother with a saleswoman. Les senses that he and his father will have an irrelevant if not nonexistent relationship going forward.
In "A Small, Good Thing," originally titled "The Bath," a young boy named Scotty is hit by a car on his birthday. After leaving Scotty in the hospital, his mother takes a bath. In "Tell the Women We're Going," two old friends, Bill and Jerry, leave their wives and kids for the day to go on a Sunday drive. After drinking at the Rec Center, they see two young girls riding their bikes. Jerry tries to pick them up, but the girls aren't interested. Angry at the rejection, Jerry cuts the girls off with his car then bashes them to death with a rock.
In "If It Please You," originally titled "After the Denim," an elderly couple, James and Edith, are disturbed when a young hippie couple dressed in denim crashes their weekly bingo game. The young man cheats, and his girlfriend wins bingo. James complains that the youngsters are certain to spend their winnings on drugs. That night, Edith says she is spotting, and James wishes the young people were the ones with all the problems, not him and Edith.
Stuart and his friends find the body of a dead girl on a camping trip in "So Much Water Close to Home." Instead of reporting the body right away, Stuart and his friends continue to enjoy their trip, drinking and carousing around the campfire. Stuart doesn't report the body until the next day. Deeply disturbed by his actions, his wife, Claire, wonders if perhaps Stuart killed the girl. In "Dummy," originally titled "The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off," an intellectually-stunted man named Dummy fills a pond with bass. Over time, Dummy becomes obsessively protective of the pond. Eventually, Dummy loses his mind completely, murdering his wife and killing himself by drowning himself in the pond.
"Pie," originally titled "A Serious Talk," follows Burt and his estranged wife, Vera. Burt pesters Vera over her new boyfriend, Charlie, cutting the cord of the phone when he calls. Burt believes all they need is "a serious talk" to patch things up, but he is deluded. In "The Calm," three men argue in a barbershop about a hunting story. In "Mine," originally called "Little Things," a mother and father fight over their baby, culminating in a tug-of-war over the infant that ends gruesomely when they both pull too hard.
In "Distance," originally titled "Everything Stuck To Him," a twenty-one-year-old woman listens as her father tells her what she was like as a child. Mel, Teresa, Laura, and Nick share drinks before going out to dinner in "Beginners," originally titled ”What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." The four end up drinking two whole bottles of gin while discussing their turbulent romantic histories. In the last story, "One More Thing," Maxine is fed up with her husband, L.D. who drunkenly berates their fifteen-year-old daughter, Rae. On his way out the door for good, L.D. announces he has "one more thing" to say to Maxine and Rae, but finds that for once he has nothing to say.
The book contains seventeen stories. The first, "Why Don't You Dance?", concerns a young couple who buys furniture from a yard sale conducted by a drunk. The drunk appears to be selling all of his possessions. After putting music on, the drunk asks the couple to dance with him. Later, the young woman mocks the man to her friends. In "Viewfinder," the narrator encounters a man with a hook for a hand. The hooked man sells the narrator a photograph of his own house.
"Where is Everyone?" was originally titled "Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit" by Carver's editor. Three years ago, the narrator was disturbed by the sight of his elderly widowed mother kissing a man on his sofa. The narrator's wife, Myrna, falls in love with Ross, a man she meets at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Reflecting on the death of his father, the narrator asks Myrna to hug him before sharing a nice dinner with him. Myrna is not enthusiastic about this. "Gazebo" is about a pair of married motel managers. After cheating on his wife, Holly, with the cleaning lady, Juanita, Duane seeks to persuade Holly that they can rebuild their trust and reinforce their love for one another. Holly disagrees.
"Want to See Something" was originally titled "I Could See the Smallest Things." In the middle of the night, Nancy wakes up and goes outside to investigate a noise, leaving her drunken, snoring husband Cliff in bed. Outside, Nancy's widowed neighbor, Sam, spreads insecticide on his garden to kill slugs. Sam and Cliff were once friends, but something came between them. "The Fling," originally titled "Sacks," concerns a textbook salesman named Les who recalls his parents' divorce. His father cheated on his mother with a saleswoman. Les senses that he and his father will have an irrelevant if not nonexistent relationship going forward.
In "A Small, Good Thing," originally titled "The Bath," a young boy named Scotty is hit by a car on his birthday. After leaving Scotty in the hospital, his mother takes a bath. In "Tell the Women We're Going," two old friends, Bill and Jerry, leave their wives and kids for the day to go on a Sunday drive. After drinking at the Rec Center, they see two young girls riding their bikes. Jerry tries to pick them up, but the girls aren't interested. Angry at the rejection, Jerry cuts the girls off with his car then bashes them to death with a rock.
In "If It Please You," originally titled "After the Denim," an elderly couple, James and Edith, are disturbed when a young hippie couple dressed in denim crashes their weekly bingo game. The young man cheats, and his girlfriend wins bingo. James complains that the youngsters are certain to spend their winnings on drugs. That night, Edith says she is spotting, and James wishes the young people were the ones with all the problems, not him and Edith.
Stuart and his friends find the body of a dead girl on a camping trip in "So Much Water Close to Home." Instead of reporting the body right away, Stuart and his friends continue to enjoy their trip, drinking and carousing around the campfire. Stuart doesn't report the body until the next day. Deeply disturbed by his actions, his wife, Claire, wonders if perhaps Stuart killed the girl. In "Dummy," originally titled "The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off," an intellectually-stunted man named Dummy fills a pond with bass. Over time, Dummy becomes obsessively protective of the pond. Eventually, Dummy loses his mind completely, murdering his wife and killing himself by drowning himself in the pond.
"Pie," originally titled "A Serious Talk," follows Burt and his estranged wife, Vera. Burt pesters Vera over her new boyfriend, Charlie, cutting the cord of the phone when he calls. Burt believes all they need is "a serious talk" to patch things up, but he is deluded. In "The Calm," three men argue in a barbershop about a hunting story. In "Mine," originally called "Little Things," a mother and father fight over their baby, culminating in a tug-of-war over the infant that ends gruesomely when they both pull too hard.
In "Distance," originally titled "Everything Stuck To Him," a twenty-one-year-old woman listens as her father tells her what she was like as a child. Mel, Teresa, Laura, and Nick share drinks before going out to dinner in "Beginners," originally titled ”What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." The four end up drinking two whole bottles of gin while discussing their turbulent romantic histories. In the last story, "One More Thing," Maxine is fed up with her husband, L.D. who drunkenly berates their fifteen-year-old daughter, Rae. On his way out the door for good, L.D. announces he has "one more thing" to say to Maxine and Rae, but finds that for once he has nothing to say.