By the time that Cathedral was published, Carver was still working with Lish but rejecting the editor’s more severe edits and preserving much more of his original drafts. Readers may still wish to describe its stories as “minimalist” in style, although they are noticeably less so than the writer’s first publication. Defining the degree of minimalism that makes up Carver’s writing is still an interesting question up for debate among scholars and readers alike.
Like all of Carver’s work, Cathedral’s stories revolve around the everyday lives of Americans who haven’t reached the dream that their culture advertises. Plagued by money issues, failed marriages, unemployment, histories of...
