“Those Folks Never Had Their Lights Turned Off.” On the Literary Importance of Highlighting the Haves and the Have-Nots

"Since reading Naomi Kanakia’s essay, 'Contemporary Literary Novels Are Haunted by the Absence of Money,' I’ve been recalling how often, nearly fifty years ago, Ray Carver and I complained about the same issue. At one point in our lives, we lived next to one another in dumpy motel cabins near Iowa City that rented for $10 a night. We regularly loaned each other a ten-dollar bill to avoid eviction. ... He tossed out similar comments about writers, no matter how much he loved what they wrote (and he did)—John Cheever, Ann Beattie, John Updike—also the postmodernists who then dominated the literary scene—Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Robert Coover. ..."

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Raymon Carder