Brian Evenson: What We Talk About When We Talk About Raymond Carver
When I was producing audiobooks in the early 00s, when audio went digital and fever was in the air, every so often I got to produce the entire catalog of a beloved and prolific author.
Do you know how rare that is? —That an author can write hundreds of stories, dozens of books, and time is kind to them?
As a producer, you don’t want to get into a career-long project if you didn’t love the writer, because you are going to locked in a room with their thoughts, non-stop, for months.
And, I should say, there’s another ingredient to recording a classic catalog: said author, or their widow, or their agent, has to be a saint and hang in there while we produce a fat oeuvre. It’s more than cashing a check. You are gonna WERK.
My notable list of the large and voluminous was Charles Bukowski, Charles Willeford, Margaret Atwood, Brian Evenson. Dorothy Allison.
And if you are like me, you might take a look at that list and say, “WHO is Brian Evenson?”
Innocent me, I didn’t know; even though I quickly caught on.
“There is not a more intense, prolific, or apocalyptic writer of fiction in America than Brian Evenson.”
—George Saunders
“Like Poe’s, Evenson’s stories range from horror to humor; a similar high critical intelligence is always in control. We read them with care, with our guard up, only to find they have already slipped inside and gotten to work, refining the feelings, the vision, the life.”
—Samuel R. Delany
In 2021, my friend Matt wrote me:
“Would you consider recording all of Brian Evenson? Maybe you don’t need an intro; he has a cult following. I went into his work blind — and immediately wanted to call you . . . When I was a teenager forming my literary tastes, I loved Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum and Kafka’s The Penal Colony. Evenson’s stories gave me that same frisson of horror and wonder. Add in fantastical elements, and Mormon lore and you’re getting the point.”
Okay, I was hooked.
I ended up working with Brian on 14 titles, some short stories, some novels, and he had specific casting ideas for each one.
This is unusual— most authors dream of reading their work themselves, or they think, “Would Meryl Streep and Al Pacino like to come over?”
Brian wasn’t like that. He wanted journeymen actors like Neil Shah, Mauro Hantman, Chris Patton, Jonathan Beville. He contemplated each specifically for particular stories. I’ve never met an author who knew the deep bench of audio talent as well as those of us behind the scenes.
At the last minute, and very humbly, Brian asked if he could read his one nonfiction book: a literary memoir about Raymond Carver, which is called, like a can of soup, Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.
“It’s so personal,” he said.
Indeed it is. Would you like to hear Brian’s prologue?
Yes, you would. You will not be able to turn away:
Prologue, Brian Evenson, Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
After I heard Brian’s first take, I was stunned. Number one, he has a beautiful voice.
Number two, I’m also a working Western writer who fell in love with Raymond Carver as a young woman, right after I discovered Jayne Anne Phillips’ Black Tickets. A nice progression, eh?
Brian’s ultimate performance, and his sensitivity to Carver’s prose, raised one of the more pressing scandals of the audiobook world:
Raymond Carver’s entire audio works, the originals, were recorded in the WORST performances ever released in the canon of classic American lit.
Notice I’m not linking to them. I don’t want to hurt you.
How could anyone do that to our Ray-Ray?
Each Carver title was released in the early months of 2017, narrated by Norman Dietz, who happens to be one of the first actors in the cassette era of audiobooks, and might have been in his 80s by the time he recorded Carver.
One would like to think Norman’s age was the problem, as he had a storied audio career— long associated with Mark Twain’s classics.
If you have the stomach to read the Dietz/Carver customer reviews— man, audiobook listeners do NOT hold back— you will find this: complete condemnation.
If I had been the audio producer of such butchery, I would have committed seppuku! Do you have any idea how many hours of nonsense this amounts to?
I’ll tell you this: my colleagues and I at Audible rarely pulled the plug on a vested production— I can think of twice in my 20 years— but if we got the raw files from a first day recording, and realized the actor had massacred it— we stopped the studio, paid the kill fee, and started from scratch.
I had to fire an AUTHOR narrator once— imagine how that went over. She told me she was bipolar and “couldn’t help it.”
I said, “I can. I can help it. And you are not ready for the wrath that will ensue if we release this SHIT.”
Well, the touching note in the Norman Dietz condemnations, is a customer named “Anna Banana” — no, that is not me!— who encouraged everyone to go listen to Brian Evenson’s homage to Carver.
It’s a little misleading, because Anna gives you the idea that we can all go listen to Brian read Carver’s full list . . . No, that doesn’t exist. But Evenson’s loving excerpts, and lifelong quest to understand Carver’s work, is a thing of beauty by itself.
As another listener suggested, the whole Carver catalog needs to be re-recorded. Damn the estate, I say. The publisher should be shamed into it; we should all get on YouTube and just start reading the stories right. Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands!
In Case You Missed It
The Novel I Read a Million Times
I went a book party, where most of the time we read in comfortable corners and spoke to no one. Perfect. Then we had drinks and cake and played some parlor games.
Last Note from Susie:
Hey, I want to thank the 6 readers who purchased paid subscriptions to my Journal this past week, since I asked for your help.
Inch by inch! I’m very keen to hear more from you, learn what you’re reading and thinking about.
There’s now a few hundred paid subscribers, which prompts me bring back our subscriber-only Chat after taking a break.
Think of it as our own private kitchen party where we can have more spur-of-the-moment conversations beyond my regular posts.
This afternoon, I’m going to be blabbing about the Ep-Fuck Files, of course, and the mysterious origins of the Happy Hour. So, see you there, if you happen to hangin’ out.
I have several thousand free subscribers, and I appreciate you, believe me! I like taking it slow, too.
But if one of you out there, who knows me well, would like to be my 7th (or even the 8th!) paid subscriber in my Fall pledge drive, I would be very pleased to be on your Christmas list.
Subscribe, with all my gratitude!
Thank you, Paul!
You aren’t kidding that he has a beautiful voice? And wonderful cadence and pronunciation as well.