Kako je to bilo - Portret mog braka s Raymondom Carverom

In What It Used to Be Like: A Portrait of My Marriage to Raymond Carver, Maryann Burk Carver recalls life with a writer whose stories helped shape modern American literature. Their youthful romance leads to marriage in 1957, when she is sixteen and he nineteen. With two children arriving soon afterwards, adult responsibilities quickly overtake their early dreams.

Years of poverty, frequent moves, demanding jobs and interrupted education follow as they try to make room for Raymond’s writing. Maryann supports the family and his literary ambitions, repeatedly postponing her own plans. As recognition begins to arrive, alcoholism increasingly destabilises their lives. Affection and shared hopes give way to infidelity, violence, separations and reconciliation.

Writing from her own perspective, Maryann restores her place in their shared history and examines the sacrifices behind a celebrated career. The family life behind the fiction offers readers a closer understanding of Carver’s recurring concerns. These memoirs portray him as a husband and father while telling the story of a woman struggling to sustain her family, her love and her own aspirations.