1.

Some people believe that Halloween is the day when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest. I don't believe in life after death, but like most anyone else, I like the idea of talking to people who've died. I've lost people I'd give anything to speak to again, and I wish I could somehow access all that lost wisdom. I know it's not possible, but it's interesting to think about.

9780743262460.jpg
This fall, I've been thinking a lot about Raymond Carver. Lots of local authors are talking about Carver again, reinvestigating their relationship to his work. A mediocre theatrical adaptation of Carver's "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" is at the center of Iñárritu's challenging, occasionally frustrating new film Birdman. It's been 26 years since Carver wasted away to nothing in a Port Angeles hospital bed, and his influence seems to have grown with every passing day. I know people who knew Carver when he was alive, but the legend seems to have subsumed the man. He now stands so tall over Northwest literature that even our genre authors live in his shadow.

So I decided to enlist the help of a spiritual medium to summon Raymond Carver for a posthumous interview. One of my friends recommended a psychic from Spokane named Amanda. Her website assured me that "Readings can be done in person or over the phone," and that "both ways are equally accurate," so I got in touch. Over e-mail, I told Amanda that I wanted to talk to a "dead writer," figuring that specificity might get in the way of a good reading, and that Amanda might want a little bit of room to maneuver in her spiritual quest. If Carver didn't want to talk, maybe some other deceased Northwest writer—Richard Hugo?—might want to step in. Amanda's replies were professional and friendly; we set a date for a consultation.

Amanda sounds like a supremely nice human being. She seems to detect my atheistic unease with the whole process—I'm as uncomfortable getting a reading, it turns out, as I am attending a mass or talking with someone about astrology—but she encourages me into feeling a little more comfortable by stepping back and letting me take the lead.

2.

We're only on the phone for a few seconds before we encounter our first spirit.

"The man who's here to talk to you," Amanda says, "is a gruff guy, but very kind-hearted to his friends. I also see him smoking, I think, cigars." Amanda says he reminded her of Lois Lane's boss.

"Perry White?" I ask.

"I think so. Kind of reminds me of that. I see that image in my mind, I think, with the cigars." She says, "It seems like this guy has a lot of experience, a lot of advice to give." Amanda asks the man how he died. He replies, "They say you have high blood pressure, heart problems, but then WHAM." Amanda explains, "I don't think [his death] was from his health." The Perry White look-a-like then tells Amanda, "Let me tell you where the treasure is." That comes across like he was saying it like "a joke," Amanda explains. She feels as though he maybe worked for "a gritty newspaper," and that "his death was ruled an accident," but that he "feels like it may have been a murder." I tell her he didn't sound like the writer I was looking for.

"There's a woman here, too," Amanda says. "She feels very feminine, very nice-looking, very dressed up" but still "shy." After a few more details, I tell Amanda I don't know who this could possibly be. Another spirit appears! This one, too, is a woman. "It feels like she's pushing other people out of the way, shouting 'Make way! Make way,'" Amanda says. The woman keeps saying to Amanda, "Paul, you know me! You know who I am! A face like mine?" I have no idea who she is. Sometime during the visitation of the last two mysterious spirits, I've become overcome with guilt; I feel as though I'm letting Amanda down, somehow. She assures me that I know a lot of people who have died, that it's "crowded around" me, and that we'd figure it out.

"The person who died," Amanda asks me, "Did she die in the last six months?" My guilt becomes impossible to ignore and I decide to give her more information. No, I explain, "It's a he, and his name is Raymond. I was confused before when you were talking about Perry White," I say, "because I guess Raymond could have looked a little like him." The cigars, I said, threw me off, too, because Raymond died of lung cancer, but then Amanda said Perry White didn't die of natural causes. Amanda asks, "Was he gruff?" Yes, I say, by all accounts, he was a pretty gruff guy.

Amanda says, triumphantly, "Well, all right, maybe that is him!" Amanda explains that Raymond had been kidding around with us before. "Maybe the cigars murdered him," she says. She laughs, "It seems like he's funny that way. And he is the only guy I see around you and he talks very clearly," so it must be him.

Who would've thought? Raymond Carver had been with us on this journey all along. Now the interview can begin.

3.

Conversations_with_Raymond_Carver.jpeg
I ask Amanda to ask Raymond how he feels about his work becoming more popular in recent years, especially with the Birdman reference. Amanda has another realization: "Is this his treasure? Remember how he said back at the beginning, 'Let me tell you where the treasure is?'" Amanda explains that these were jokes, or riddles—that Raymond was having fun with us. "I think he has very mixed feelings about everything that's happening," Amanda tells me. "It's almost like the people who are left change history, or the winners change history. Now that he's not here to say what he meant, he can be misconstrued."

I tell Amanda that last comment could refer to how Carver's editor, Gordon Lish, is now commonly understood to be the shaping force behind many of Carver's best-loved stories. Does Raymond feel upset, seeing some of the credit for his work wind up with Lish? Amanda says she thinks those charges that Lish had near-authorial control over Carver's work are true, and that Raymond confirms her suspicion. "It feels like he's saying, 'Yeah, that's true.' But then he defends himself. 'But everyone has help. Look at all the famous people. There was always someone in their corner that's helping and editing.' I feel like he's getting worked up about it," Amanda says.

She laughs. "Yes, it feels like he's a very passionate person. He could go on and on about it. No, I don't think he's OK with it, even though it's true." Amanda explains, "It feels like he could go on and on about plagiarism and how one thing builds on another thing, and aren't we all inspired by something else, even if it influences us. And he's reminding me about The Life of Pi, that book, and how it's very similar to another one." And "so, he says, 'It's not that big of a deal.'" Raymond tells Amanda that "those people are just jealous, trying to stomp on me." Amanda says Raymond's disappointed that "now the fame comes, after he passed. That makes him unhappy, too. I think he wanted the money while he was down here. And where is the money going? Is it going to his family?" I said I assumed Carver's royalties probably benefit his second wife, local poet Tess Gallagher. "I think he's not all that happy about that, either. I feel like there are other places he'd want the money to go to. Other family. Other people."

4.

I explain to Amanda that Carver's realism is still influential today for a lot of young writers. Raymond, Amanda says, is "very modest about" his influence. She quotes him as saying, "well, whatever helps. No one's perfect. Use it as a springboard," but "take it and do your own thing." She says that what Raymond did was "almost like channeling. He is saying how he's like Edgar Allan Poe. Poe, too, channeled his work." Raymond's advice from beyond the grave is to "be yourself. Be who you are. Everyone has a voice within you and that's what writing is about, is bringing that out." She also says Raymond says, "don't throw anything away. Even if it's junk or garbage, it will be beneficial later on, maybe just to yourself. There's always a kernel there. There's always something. We all learn, change and grow as we get older, so who you are today as a young writer is not who you'll be later on. And that's both good and bad, because we change so much." Raymond concludes, "there's always a place for everything" and "there are other people like you."

Raymond, Amanda says, is very happy with how his life turned out. She quotes him as saying, "Ah, it was a good life." Is he happy where he is? "Very. He is. I think he wasn't ready to leave. I do truly believe that our soul decides when it's our time to go." She says Raymond's struggle with alcoholism "was his own fault, but I feel like he doesn't regret any of his life. I feel like he's making a joke, like, 'it's the way of writers. All good writers.' Again, he thinks of himself a lot like Poe. Very angsty, very troubled, but it led to something worthwhile. That's what he says."

I ask her to tell Carver that he was a big influence on my life. "He knows," Amanda says. Our scheduled thirty minutes end, and Raymond again shuffles off into death. He'll be watching over me, Amanda says. He follows me and gives me advice. Raymond Carver is always with me.